AFPDE - Women’s Association for the Promotion and Endogenous Development - DRC

By Nayara Lima

The AFPDE is an organization based in Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its goals are to recognize the rights of women and children, to protect them and to support them in their rehabilitation from violence.

The headquarters of the AFPDE is located in Uvira, DRC.

Created by militant women in 1999, AFPDE is committed to recognizing the rights of women and children, protecting them and supporting them in their rehabilitation. Although the country is full of many natural resources, the population (over 60 million inhabitants) lives in a very difficult situation. In fact most of the population has no access to primary health care, drinking water, electricity, a healthy living. The civil servants, military and police are not well paid, leading to molestation, theft, corruption and attack by military and police on the civilian populations to meet their needs. This situation is largely caused by bad governance in the country since independence and also by the various wars that continue to claim victims in the east of the country. These wars cause systematic looting of the property of the population and lead to widespread sexual violence against women and girls. These are rejected by their husbands, families and find themselves abandoned to their fate with serious injuries.

The mission of the AFPDE is to encourage autonomous efforts of women related to the protection and promotion of human rights in general and to improve their social, health and economic circumstances. The choice of activities to be implemented is decided by members of the women’s groups that are supported by AFPDE.

International Women’s Day parade in Uvira on March 8, 2019.

Currently AFPDE conducts its activities over the whole of the South Kivu and in some corners of the three other provinces of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The groups have undertaken many different kinds of activities, such as education, nutrition and health programs for orphans and Burundian refugees; literacy and economic empowerment training of women; and water, hygiene and sanitation programs such as building of toilets and distribution of menstrual hygiene supplies, to name just a few. More on the AFPDE programs here.

AFPDE is a partner organization of the Kota Alliance.