ITURI FOREST PEOPLES FUND

Efe (pygmy) foragers and Lese farmers working hard to provide themselves with health care and primary education for their children

In the Ituri rain forest of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo a community of farmers and hunter-gatherers are working hard to ensure that their children can go to school and that when they get sick they have access to primary health care. In this region government funded schools have not been open since 1985, and for the past 30 years if anyone became sick they would have to walk 60km through the forest to the nearest clinic. In 1987 the Efe and Lese of Andisengi decided not to wait for the government to provide them with social services, they decided to take their futures into their own hands and establish and run their own clinic and primary school.

The clinic provides primary health care to the over 600 Efe and Lese families who live in the area, and allows over 200 children to attend primary school for the first time. The Andisengi school and clinic are the result of the needs, vision, and hard work of Lese and Efe families. In the past five years government of ex-President Mobutu fell into chaos, the road system collapsed, and inflation was over 70% per month. Even with the overthrow of the old regime and the establishment of Laurent Kabila as president, life for the citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo is still intolerably hard. The Efe and Lese are struggling to pay the salaries of the teachers and the clinic nurse, and buying school books and medicines is almost impossible.

The Ituri Forest Peoples Fund (a special project of Cultural Survival) was established in 1987 by a group of teachers who have been working in the Ituri forest since 1979. The Ituri Forest Peoples Fund is supported by private donations, and the sale of items made by Efe and Lese artisans. The fund augments the efforts of the community by contributing to the nurses and teachers salaries, buying school books in Swahili and French that are unavailable in Congo, and by buffering the clinic pharmacy from hyperinflation.

The Efe and Lese are determined to keep the clinic open and to ensure that their children are able to attend school. Please help the Efe and Lese to help themselves. You can help support the school and the clinic by contributing to The Ituri Forest Peoples Fund. The fund is managed solely by volunteers and its finances are overseen by Cultural Survival. A donation of $1 will cure a child with malaria, $5 will buy a box of chalk for the teachers, $30 will pay the nurse's salary for a month. Even a small contribution goes a long way in the Ituri.