The international Red Cross Committee estimated that over 3.8 million people lost their lives in a decade-long war in D.R. Congo due to starvation or disease alone (IHL 1). In addition, millions of people have become internally displaced persons, while some are fleeing the fighting by crossing borders to the neighboring countries. The war mostly concentrated in the Eastern Congo has mainly affected women and children due to their high nature of vulnerability.
The physical assault on women has led to enormous distress, posing a challenge to the traditional relief system by the aid agencies that principally concentrated on rescue missions and material support without taking into consideration the psychological challenges women face (IHL 2). The project will therefore concentrate on empowering women victims with distress management skills.
Stakeholders Analysis
Even though war and violence affect all in a society, the impact on different gender groups is varied in degree. In the D.C Congo, just like other war-torn countries, women have borne the brunt of war due to their susceptibility to rape and torture, and even killings. They also experience deprived basic resources for livelihood, increased family responsibility, detention, displacements, and the resultant psychological distress (ICRC 2).
It is, therefore, necessary to develop coping skills that would enable them to manage the general psychological torture. To ensure sustainability, the project will involve volunteers who are drawn locally at the community level in the affected region (Eastern Congo). The volunteers will undergo social and psychological training that would equip them with the appropriate skills required to carry out the duty of counseling the project target victims on survival and individual trauma/ distress management techniques. This is expected to help achieve project goals and objectives.
Logical framework
The overall goal of the project is to empower the women to achieve psychological distress management skills in the conflict-ravaged D.R Congo through counseling during and after the conflicts. This is expected to be achieved through the use of the local volunteers drawn from their respective regions and trained in modern counseling skills to comply with the changing trends. This is to ensure the enhancement of the long-term sustainability of the project for both effective planning and implementation.
- Purpose: The process of training the locally drawn volunteers is expected to breed sustainability in the project delivery process on a long-term basis rather than short-term.
- Results: The women victims of war are therefore expected to be more empowered to become trainers of trainers for sustainability by focusing on individual empowerment.
- Inputs: It would involve training of volunteers and then the movement of volunteers to affected areas to brief the community on what is expected of them in the project.
- Monitoring and evaluation: The past data from humanitarian organizations working in the region and government would be used as the benchmark indicators, such as the number of women initiated in the program and the success stories of the victims.
- Assumption: It is logical to assume that the target group will be accessible so that they can be involved in the project despite the fact that some hideaway in the thick forest to avoid atrocities committed by the militias during the intense conflict.
Works cited
IHL. Women and War: “Are Women More Vulnerable than Men?” 1977. Web.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “Strategy 2010: To Improve Lives of Vulnerable people by Mobilizing the Power of Humanity”. Web.