The postcolonial history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which from 1961 to 1997 was known as Zaire, is marked by a series of dictatorships and civil wars.

Conflicts, disease and the destruction of the already precarious infrastructure of this African country have seen this land descend into a serious humanitarian crisis where the local conflict is intertwined with many international interests, further complicating a situation currently characterised by an extremely serious social crisis that the recent elections have done nothing to improve.

In such a context of severe social hardship, the Church is seeking in some way to make up for the failures of the institutions, building and managing schools and healthcare structures, as well as launching development projects targeted at the local population. At the heart of these initiatives, the Ngangi Don Bosco Centre, located in North Kivu, one of the most problematic areas of the country, has two main areas of activity. The first is that of offering shelter and assistance to highly vulnerable minors: orphans, abandoned children, refugees, war victims... The other area is that of teaching: through various school cycles ranging from literacy classes to elementary school and professional courses, the Centre offers school education to over 2300 pupils. If the children voluntarily attend the Don Bosco school it is not just because it is free or because of the support (also psychological) they receive, but also because everyone is offered a meal every day. Every day the Centre kitchens prepare meals for 3000 people thanks to the support of the WFP (World Food Programme), which provides the Salesians with maize, legumes, salt and oil. This help, which is already diminishing month by month, will no longer be guaranteed as of June 2012. Given that for many children and youths the only daily meal they consume is that offered by the Don Bosco Centre, the situation is increasingly grave. The priority of the missionaries is to continue guaranteeing the meagre nutritional assistance it has so far provided the minors that frequent the Centre or that hang around it.

The main objective of the Millennium is to “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger”: there is severe hardship in North Kivu and for now the priority of the Don Bosco missionaries is to provide a daily meal to those minors that know nothing other than misery.

With less than 1 euro a day we can guarantee a ration of polenta and beans to a minor at the Ngangi Don Bosco Centre in Goma.