It is conceived, owned, and run by local Congolese, and has flourished since it first opened its doors in June 2011 – its objective is to offer healing touches to women who are trying to come out from their past trauma. The process is through therapy and life skills programming simultaneously providing them with the essential ingredients that are necessary to move forward in life namely love and community.
It is at present serving 90 survivors of gender violence who are aged 18 to 30 at a time, and in another six years’ time, the City of Joy will graduate over 1,000 women leaders. They are doing yeomen service and teaching women to brush the past and live once again.
The City of Joy is a project of the Foundation Panzi (DRC) and V-Day.
As Francine Bintu, the Logistics Manager, explains - when women first come to this place, they are so traumatized that they cannot see you in the eye, they cannot talk to others, they are ashamed, they are fearful, but within a period of six months at the City of Joy they can stand, talk without fear, without shame, and they have confidence in themselves.
Incidentally, till now, one used to refer to Calcutta as the City of Joy because of a movie of that name by Roland Joffe in 1992 – the movie was based on a 1985 novel by Dominique Lapierre. Now, there is an addition.
No comments:
Post a Comment