Recently I spent a week in Kinshasa observing our talented Girl Researchers. They were analysing their first sets of qualitative data collected as part of DFID DRC’s programme for adolescent girls, La Pépinière. Sixteen girls aged between 16 and 24, from …
It had rained solidly all night, and was still raining at 6:30 as we assembled at the Pakistani Company Operating Base outside Walungu to assess whether the road trip was possible. The Burhale to Shabunda road in South Kivu is …
Having arrived in DRC just over a month ago, I was incredibly lucky to be taken with Alastair and Mischa - colleagues from the DFID DRC humanitarian team - to see our programmes in the east. Having seen that special security …
Hello and thanks for reading. After a year of managing the UK’s humanitarian programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) based in the capital city Kinshasa, I’m off to the east of the country for a few months. I’m …
It's moth season in Kinshasa. Every month here seems to bring different insects. Sometimes it's giant flying beetles. Other times it's swarms of brown paper-like flies. Just now there are moths everywhere - moths as big as my two hands; tiny moths; you …
I'm sitting on a covered patio at the Embassy, watching a Congolese storm brew. The weather didn’t let up all weekend, and it's hard not to see it as a metaphor for the turbulence that has followed the release of …
"I thought results were due out today?" my dad asked on Tuesday. "What's going on?" It's true that the announcement of the results of the DRC elections were originally slated for the 6th December. But the huge challenge of getting …
Locked inside a classroom at 9pm, watching the count of presidential votes by the light of camping lanterns, I couldn't have been further from my day job. As I reported in my last blog, I spent Monday 28th November 2011 …
"Can you call someone?" I kept being asked, "We want to be able to vote." I set off at 4:45 this morning - bleary-eyed but as tightly wound with excitement and anticipation as the city of Kinshasa has been throughout …
Every time I drive around Kinshasa at the moment I see a new fabric banner singing the praises of one of thousands of Congolese politicians. There's a palpable sense of excitement in the air as pick-up trucks pass me by …
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