Our efforts and your support are saving lives and keeping families safe, but our struggle continues – please help, no matter how small or large

The challenges our friends in the Congo are facing are much different from our own. 

They live in abject poverty and under siege by warring rebel factions and gangs rising to fill power vacuums. These are inhuman brutes who squeeze the supply lines to starve the citizens of Goma to make them bow to their will and they seize the innocent for nefarious purposes. Rebels and other lawless elements steal, harass, beat and kill people, as well as kidnap and force the young into becoming child soldiers and into human trafficking. They do so to fund their warring and criminal enterprises. It is truly heartbreaking.

HOWEVER, your donations help to protect and save the good people associated with Building Resilience in Congo (BRIC) and truly continue to save lives and give people hope. Not only are children and families kept safe and fed, but they continue to be educated at the BRIC school and are being taught to run income-generating businesses to help sustain their families, and to fund and preserve the BRIC school and its fortified compound. All things that your support has helped build. 

Please help us move forward with BRIC construction plans and providing food and school supplies for the BRIC sanctuary and the children and youths who count upon us.

To all our kind supporters of Relief in the Congo for God’s Children from Human Trafficking and BRIC (Building Resilience in the Congo) past and present:

THANK YOU so much for your past financial support to feed and protect the children and families rescued and sustained by the lifesaving BRIC Foundation Project. 

It has been 5 years since we began to assist BRIC financially, and your donations have made a profound difference in protecting and saving entire families. Together we have enabled BRIC to build a fortified enclosure with a school and other life-saving facilities on privately owned property. While they must still pay property taxes, they do not have to pay rent, which means more of your donations can now be spent to educate and feed BRIC students and families, as well as continue to improve the protective BRIC enclosure.

BRIC has always had challenges from the rebels, but we were blindsided when the war came to Goma proper, and the rebels occupied the city. We have recently received reports that the occupying M23 rebel forces are slowly leaving the city, but they have not yet left Goma altogether. They continue to cause havoc and threaten the people there, preventing them from leading peaceful lives unencumbered with violence and corruption. Which is why we need your continued support to improve the protective BRIC compound and help the people who so count upon it.

When we started this non-profit organization 5 years ago, things were already difficult in Goma….we didn’t foresee it getting worse. Our BRIC friends in Goma were surrounded and threatened by the M23 Rebels, but your meaningful donation helped keep most of the BRIC families safe. Thank you so much but our battle is not yet over.  

Through it all, those associated with BRIC have successfully managed to shield the children and families in need. With our help, they strive to become self-sufficient and continue to help people in need.

We have high hopes that the peace accords recently signed by the foreign ministers of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda will result in the Rebel Warlord completely leaving the eastern Congo and returning to Rwanda, strengthening the peace process in Goma and in the region in general. HOWEVER, the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo continues to face one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. People are displaced, starving, homeless, and facing violent aggression from the rebels. 

The BRIC personnel and the families they feed, teach, and protect remain fragile and need our support. 100% of your donations goes to BRIC, as do the donations from businesses in the city of Goma. Please help in any way you can.

Our current plan is to construct a dormitory-like home inside BRIC’s protective enclosure, and we have started up school again, so funds are needed to purchase school supplies for the BRIC students as they continue to lead a more normal existence and get an education to remove them from poverty. With your help, schoolrooms were recently equipped with better desks and chairs (replacing the benches and tables) and receipt of in-kind donations from businesses in Goma. We hope to move forward into a time of peace in which work on the BRIC enclosure can continue to progress at a more rapid pace.

Your donations, small or large, will continue to save and improve lives.

Please consider helping BRIC move forward into the future and pray/meditate/think positively for peace in Goma, and for the citizens of Goma located in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo near their northeastern border with Rwanda.

Thank You,

Relief in the Congo for God’s Children from Human Trafficking

Board of Directors: Dan Stout, Larry Nelson, Traycee Shepard, Kayna Stout, Yvonne Nelson