The benefits of the project also include social cohesion as the project brings together all communities. Photo MONUSCO / Rachel Kiesse Mbangu
To reduce communal violence in that part of the country, a dairy cooperative set up with support from MONUSCO DDRRR community project employs roughly fifty demobilized young people at risk as well as vulnerable women and girls in Bwegera.
This MONUSCO-backed dairy cooperative project, which has been operational for a month in Bwegera, the territory of Uvira, helped to pull out ex-combatants from armed groups and to recover some sixty weapons, at the same time providing employment for 50 members of the cooperative, including demobilized, young people at risk of recruitment by armed groups as well as vulnerable women and girls.
Thanks to this project, every month, 5,000 liters of milk are transformed into curdled milk, cheese and yoghurt. Safari Romain, head of the cooperative, acknowledges the social and economic impacts of the cooperative in Bwegera village and the surroundings. "Money is now flowing... people are witnessing the beginning of economic recovery," he underscored.
It is a real sigh of relief for Kikamba chiefdom where the project is located. Its group leader, Sogoti Rusimbi, is convinced that “it will help young people to leave the bush, the women who will be supplying the cooperative with milk and will generate resources to sustain them all”.
Alphone Mugoyi from MONUSCO DDRRR section also noted, for his part, the impact of the project on the security situation in this part of the province insofar as the project provides the demobilized combatants with the necessary means to cater for themselves, discourages possible new recruitments and attracts the combatants still active in the area.
Furthermore, the project promotes social cohesion for "it [the project] brings all the communities to work together", further said Alphone Mugoyi. Karna Soro, the Head MONUSCO Office in the South Kivu stated, "other similar projects are available at DDRC-S national coordination, which they are ready to duplicate in future".