Angumu is a mountainous area in Ituri province, in northeast DRC, near the Ugandan border. It is a remote place and reaching the communities that live there can be challenging. In 2018, violence and natural disasters in neighbouring regions caused tens of thousands of people to move into Angumu. They found shelter in areas near villages and alongside roads, creating numerous camps for displaced people, each housing several thousand people. At the time, MSF estimated that over 42,000 people had been forced to leave their homes in search for safety, and so decided to begin an emergency response. Since then the number of displaced people in Angumu has risen dramatically and currently stands at nearly 80,000.

COMMUNITY AS PARTNERS

The project launched by MSF since 2018 focuses on an advanced community approach aiming at giving community members ownership over their own health needs. There is extensive participation from both the Ministry of Health and the community. People & patients are considered partners, not beneficiaries that receive assistance. They are responsible for their own health and, as partners, they share responsibility in the project. Today our teams have managed to empower the community and have arrived at the point where all construction and other logistical efforts are done in cooperation with them. MSF provides the necessary material and the community does the rest. The participation is inclusive from the start, from the building to the management of the health sites.

MSF is now working to further build community resilience and to help them become more independent when it comes to the management of all aspects their health. The committees operating in the various displaced people sites represent a good opportunity for MSF to delegate certain aspects of the response and increase the level of community empowerment..