MHCD 2024-2026 PROJECTS:
MHCD is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation whose objectives are to fight poverty, provide good professional and cheap health care services to vulnerable people, and promote education, primary health care, and community development in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Since we started our activities, we have managed to carry out several quick-impact projects that have helped the vulnerable populations in different communities in the DRC.
After several years of development work, we have gone through both good times and difficult times, which is why we want to change our strategy in 2024.
In 2024-2026, we have decided to focus on activities and projects that will help our organisation become self-sufficient and self-financing.
Here are the projects we intend to carry out in 2024:
1. Modernisation of the Luvungi hospital:
We want to build a clinic with private rooms; build good toilets; construct two buildings to house Physiotherapy and Internal Medicine departments and construct walkways at the hospital to protect patients from the rain and sun. We will also add more equipment for the Ophthalmology department, Dentistry department and we plan to have a community Pharmacy that will provide medication for Outpatient and other MHCD clinics.
The modernisation of the Luvungi hospital will help us raise funds that will help MHCD to carry out local projects and also help to support the nurses, doctors and midwives.
- Midwifery School:
We plan to build 4 classrooms, a technical room and an office.
The construction of the extra buildings at the Midwifery School will allow the school to enrol more students. The funds from the students who are able to pay for tuition will support the school and also pay for tuition for students from poor families who cannot afford the school fees.
- Auto-Bus:
MHCD has a 50-seater bus in Adelaide which needs to be shipped to Luvungi, DRC. The bus will be used for the journey between Uvira-Bukavu-Bujumbura. This bus service will help local passengers and will also help the women who have small businesses to travel to Bukavu and Bujumbura to purchase the goods they need to sell. We intend to charge a low bus fare. The women will therefore make a higher profit, and this will help them to support their families and businesses. The profit from the bus fares will be used to finance MHCD activities and projects. This is one of MHCD’s most important projects for 2024. We are in need of AUS$ 40,000 to transport the bus from Adelaide to the DRC.
- Construction of 6 classrooms for the MHCD Polytechnic School (Secondary School).
Every year we have more than 1200 students studying at the MHCD Polytechnic School. Most of the classes have 80 to 100 students. With the construction of 6 new classrooms, we will be able to significantly reduce the number of students in each class.
This programme will help us to modernise the school. The students will contribute to the development and progress of the school and other MHCD projects.
- Promote agriculture and livestock projects:
The support given to the agricultural community, through the Microfinancing Programme, is one of the main projects which has helped reduce poverty in many communities.
In 2024, we would like to have an MHCD Agriculture Project that will help us to support the feeding programs at the MHCD schools in Luvungi and Sange. This project would also support MHCD, our Midwifery Students and the locally made Birthing Kits project.
- Solar Kits and Lamps project:
We have discovered that in many villages people, especially women, do not have light at night. This lack of lighting has brought, and continues to bring, a lot of problems and accidents in many houses especially in the more rural villages.
In 2024, we hope to order 10,000 solar lights and lamps which we will distribute, free of charge, to the poorest people and for a very low purchase price for those able to pay.
A solar lamp costs USD$6 in many shops in Uvira but, to help families to get them, we will sell them at USD$3.
Our objective is to have lights in every house in Uvira Territory especially in villages where they can’t afford to buy the more expensive lights.
- Op Shop in the DRC and Kenya:
The opening of Op shops in the DRC and Kenya will help us to raise money locally to support MHCD local projects.
We will buy goods that people need, predominantly from our community members who have been supported by MHCD and will sell the goods at very reasonable prices to help the local communities.
This project needs financial support to be set up.
- MHCD Solar Farm:
MHCD has installed a 100kw solar farm in Luvungi that will supply power to the hospital, schools and other MHCD projects.
We will also supply electricity to the community surrounding the MHCD compound as part of our Microfinancing Program.
The money received for the power will help us to support the power project itself and also other MHCD projects in the Microfinancing Program.
We have successfully installed all solar panels and batteries but we need cables to finally complete the Solar Farm.
We need 6000 metres of PV solar Cable: 1 meter costs USD$3.
- Bicycles for Health and Development:
In the DRC, we don’t have good roads, so many women walk several kilometers to till their lands, fetch water from the rivers, or go to the market to sell their goods.
The big problem is that they carry heavy loads on their backs and heads (e.g. 20 liters of water, 50kg of food from markets or farms, firewood, timber, etc.).
This causes and provokes many illnesses such as chronic low back pain, headaches, and migraine and we even have women who have miscarriages because of this. There are also men and youths, especially those transporting timber and firewood to sell from the Bafuliru mountain, who fall ill after carrying heavy loads, and many of them are admitted in our hospital in Luvungi.
To solve this problem and find a lasting solution, we have launched a bicycle for health and development project, which consists of distributing bicycles to the population of Uvira, especially women and girls, to help them avoid carrying their goods on their backs.
Our aim is to make it easier for them by using bicycles to carry their goods, instead of carrying them on their backs or heads.
With this project, we will reduce poverty, promote women’s small business and agricultural activities, and reduce diseases coming about as a result of strain on the backs or heads.
Our goal is to distribute 1000 bicycles by the end of 2024-2026.
- Traditional midwives’ huts:
Traditional Midwives do a very good job in our communities in the DRC. They spend all their time and energy delivering babies and most of them don’t even get any money because the women who come to deliver don’t have the money and they come from poor families.
They often live in small houses and deliver babies in their own homes, which causes a lot of problems for their families and even for the women giving birth.
Often, they are the ones who provide meals to the expectant women.
To help them deliver in a good and safe environment, we have launched a project of constructing small houses (huts) for traditional midwives.
These houses will be used as delivery rooms, where midwives can rest when their are no patients and also be used as health posts to vaccinate children and provide primary health care for women and all community.
The houses will be built from locally available materials, but the MHCD will provide other materials such as iron sheets, metal, windows, doors, cement, sand and rubble for paving and finishing the house.
Each house will cost USD 1,000.
In 2024, we plan to build 10 houses (huts) in 10 different villages located in Uvira Territory and other provinces like North Kivu where they are most needed.
For more information about this project, feel free to contact us.
- Container of Love:
Every year, MHCD and MHCDASA send containers to the DRC.
These containers usually have medical equipment, chairs and tables for schools, clothes, shoes, sewing machines, days for girls, birthing kits, mattresses, beds, solar panels, solar batteries, computers, etc.
These containers have made a significant contribution to the socio-economic development of the MHCD and several villages in the Uvira Territory.
MHCD hospitals and medical centres, as well as schools, are well equipped because of these containers.
We call them Containers of Love because they bring love, reconciliation, peace of heart and hope to many vulnerable people in the Uvira Territory.
We thank all those who donate the materials to put in the container, the volunteers who help load the goods into the container and all the friends of MHCD and MHCDASA who help transport these containers from Australia to Luvungi in the DRC.
Without your support, efforts and sacrifices we could not transport these containers to the DRC.
This is why we thank you so much for your love and support.
Our vision is to transport another 40-foot container in the year 2024-2026.
We still need your support to successfully transport the container in the year 2024-2026.
- Liberty Surgical Campaign:
Every year, MHCD, in collaboration with Luvungi MHCD Hospital, organizes a medical and surgical campaign.
The campaign lasts one to two months.
The medical-surgical campaign gives all those who can’t afford treatment, especially the poorest of the poor, the chance to receive free and semi-free treatment.
Most of the Congolese population especially those in the villages live on less than USD 1 per day and health/medical treatment is expensive in the DRC, which means that many sick people are unable to afford treatment, especially in villages and rural areas.
To solve this problem, we decided to launch an annual medical and surgical program to enable vulnerable patients to receive treatment.
Since we started this program, we have managed to treat and operate over 7340 patients, most of them women and children.
Through this program we have managed to save many lives and reduce poverty in many villages and rural areas.
We do operations on diseases such as goitre, appendicitis, hernia, fibromyalgia, myoma, prostate, cysts, etc.
We treat illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic malaria, malaria associated with anaemia, infectious diseases, chronic backpain, chronic headache, migraine, gastric ulcer, arthritis, rymatism, etc.
During the medical-surgical campaign, deliveries and caesarean sections are free of charge.
Every year, we treat over 800 people.
Surgical operations cost only USD 70 (AUS 110) per person, except for goitre and prostate, which are expensive.
This program needs your support to buy medicines, consumables and catering for doctors, nurses and midwives.
We are kindly please requesting the MHCD friends and supporters to support the medical and surgical campaign.
You can support one or more patients.
Your contribution will save lives and reduce poverty for one or many people in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
For more information, please contact Dr. Luc MULIMBALIMBA, email: moulymasu@gmail.com
- Construction of the Community Centres:
To better help women do their micro-credit work through meetings and to the community of Sange and Lubarika fight poverty,
We are planning to finalize the construction of the community centre in Sange and build another in Lubarika and Ndolera.
The centre will have a large meeting room, a tailoring, computer training centres and other sections that will help the women especially single mothers, widows and raped victims together with the youths and orphans to become self-sufficient. We will also organize training and workshops in agriculture, fish farming, primary health care, midwifery, etc.
Another function of the community centre will be to reduce infant mortality rates by training traditional Midwives and community health workers.
- Construction of health centres and health posts:
To promote community health and primary health care and to support MHCD’s actions, we will rehabilitate the MHCD medical center in Ndolera, build a health center in Bwegera, Runingu, Lubarika,Luberizi, Kiringe CDC, Kiringe Nyamutiri, Businga, Rubanga, Buheba and Kiliba.
We will also relaunch Naturopathic Clinics in Bukavu, Uvira, Luvungi and Sange.
- Conclusion:
These are the projects we are planning to do in 2024.I kindly request all well-wishers who are reading this report to please help us in supporting one of these projects.
By supporting a project, you will be helping many communities and families to end their poverty in the DRC and help the development of MHCD to become self-sufficient.
Many thanks.
(Mission en Soins de Santé et Développement)