2009.02 - Complexe Scolaire Lemba Imbu Request

Complexe Scolaire Lemba Imbu request

We are happy to announce that Lemba Imbu has received pledges for its entire request for the infirmary. They have also received most of the money they need for the School. The request for $6582 for the infirmary has been completely met with grants from SD Canada, SD Portland (USA), and SDIA. The response for the request for $9597 for the school has reached $8040 with donations from SD France, SD Norway, and SD USA. We only have $1557 to go!

Complexe Scolaire Lemba Imbu (Lemba Imbu School) is a non-profit organization and is a member of SD DRC, a Development NGO legally acknowledged by the DRC Government and that has obtained the import duties exemption.

Amount of the requested grant:   

Lemba Imbu was created in 1995 in a destitute, underdeveloped and enclosed area of Kinshasa that is quite inaccessible. Many Subud members and SDIA know about the school and the difficulties it has to face. The school has been benefiting from the support of SDIA and several national or local SD organizations (France, Holland, Norway, USA), the Blond Trust and Lienhard Berger, etc.. During the past fourteen years, the school has provided primary education to around 6,300 children.

Lemba Imbu School is a primary school for boys and girls without social, financial or other restriction. It provides a great service to the local community which, owing to the geographical and economic conditions, is also undereducated. With a population of over a 16,000 inhabiting a nine villages area, the region has more than 6,000 children who have to go to school each year.

This year 486 pupils between five and eighteen years old will be able to complete their school year; 86 orphans or destitute children are cared for by the schools. There is a staff of fifteen, including nine teachers for nine forms, four administration staff, one worker and one guard, who earn minimal regular wages to be able to survive.

The region has a critical and chronic poverty condition: most of the parents are doing market gardening, and see their gardens destroyed by floods during the rainy season. It is so difficult to produce crops to make a living that life in Lemba-Imbu can be lived only on a day-to-day basis. Nobody can be sure what will happen the tomorrow.

We are trying to sensitize the parents so that they try to find perhaps only a little something to contribute to help the school find summary ways to survive... But with the present situation, as long as the solution to fight against poverty has still not been implemented within our country, we are condemned to live this suffering without being able to know for how long! We are keeping on encouraging the parents to get together and organize into small saving and credit associations to make it possible to our communities to develop with hope.

When no pupils leave school for financial reasons and all complete their September to July school year, when there is no more group resignation of teachers, then we can say that conditions have improved.

Contact Information:

Groupe Scolaire Susila Dharma de Lemba-Imbu
(GSSD Lemba-Imbu)
(Lemba-Imbu SD School Group)
rue Luzizila N° 1
Ndjili-Kimambu
Mont Ngafula
Lemba-Imbu
KINSHASA
The Democratic Republic of Congo (RD Congo)

Phone:   
+243 (0)99 99 99 783
+243 (0)99 18 76 576

E-mail: charlotte_susiladharmardc@yahoo.fr

Charolotte Ndona-Muini's address:
NDONA-MUINI, Charlotte
rue Bakwanga N° 14
Ndjili-Kimambu
Mont Ngafula
Lemba-Imbu
KINSHASA
The Democratic Republic of Congo (RD Congo)

It is possible to reach Charlotte thru e-mail, but she has got to travel 10 miles to get to the nearest cyber-café, and much further when it is not working. During rain-season, it is much more difficult to go out of Lemba-Imbu as even the 4X4 wheel-drive vehicles find it near impossible to travel on the local roads. (note from Arnaud)