25 July 2004

Assistance needed for 700 Needy Children

Posted by Deogratias under: General .

Dear beloved ones in the Lord,

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

I hope this message finds you well. The reason which pushes me to send you this message is to present to you the situation of 700 needy children who are in refugee camp here in Burundi due to recent war in Democratic Republic of Congo “DRC” a number of children who are in Gatumba refugee camp has been increased. Would you please consider finding some help for these children?

Please allow me to give the following information concerning actually problems that we are facing; as you may know since 1993 there is war in our country Burundi that caused many people to go in other countries to look for shelters and others are in Internal Displaced Camps here in Burundi.
War was not reported only in Burundi, it was also erupted in Democratic Republic of Congo “DRC” in few years ago that caused thousands of people to leave DRC and come to Burundi to find shelters. The first refugee camp for Congolese was built in Gatumba here in Bujumbura. This camp is located at 18 KM from the Capital City of Bujumbura. It is about 2 km from the boarder between DRC and Burundi.

For the year 2002 this camp received about more that 5000 people but now some of them have taken to other camps up country. Others went back home in DRC but other Congolese still live in this camp because there is no security for them. Because of living in bad conditions in the camp, some families decided to go to live in village in Gatumba.

This transit camp is also receiving returnees from DRC and Tanzania; these are Burundian who come back home from Tanzania where they have some of them have been living there since 1972 and others 1993. The government of Burundi is trying to help them to find where to stay but before they are taken to that place, they have to be put in Gatumba refugee camp. Some of them have been in this camp since last year and they still there until today.

From the time refugees came to Burundi from Democratic Republic of Congo, UNHCR and other International Humanitarian organization helped these people with food, water, shelter and medical treatment but now that program have been stopped, today only drinking water is supplied to this camp.
Our organization CHRITIAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BURUNDI “CCD BURUNDI” is a Christian organization registered by the Government of Burundi; we are doing evangelism and helping needy children in this camp. During the time International Humanitarian Organization provided food and other things for people in refugee camp, we thought to offer God’s word to the children and their parents, this is morally or what we call spiritual help. We organized time teach them God’ word, games and have funny time with children. They appreciated and they continue to appreciate to have this help from CCD BURUNDI.

Since that time until day, we continue to go to evangelize children. Some friends in UK and USA were able to send few clothing, balloons, sweets that we offered to these children. They were blessed to have such gifts. Now we are helping 700 children who are in the camp together with returnees from DRC and Tanzania, all of them live in Gatumba; we want to help them not only spiritually but also physically. These are children and babies, some are orphans of both parents and others have one parent. Some go school and others don’t go to school dues to lack of financial help.

Please allow me to show you the actually needs of these children; they are in great need of food, clothing, medical treatment, mobile clinic, educational materials, school fees and so on.

We in CCD BURUNDI have tried to assist these children spiritually but in order to reinforce it we would like to have things mentioned above so that the physical needs of children be met. We would like to suggest that things be shipped in containers or to be purchased in Burundi.

I hope this information will help you to have a picture of the situation of the needy children and what they need. Please feel free to contact me at gdeniy@yahoo.com in case you may have any question. If you have any donation please transfer any money to this bank account and mention “Support to needy Children in Gatumba refugee camp”. The following is the bank account number:
$ 201-0100359-11 USD
Banque de Credit de Bujumbura
SWITF CODE: BCRBBIBIAXXX

Just to inform you, in the USA my bank works with the CITIBANK NEW YORK, its swift code is: CITIUS33DXXX and in the UK it works with BELGOLAISE UK.
You can also send your help through Western Union in Burundi or send your support by post in a registered letter only to our address below.

Thanks for praying for the need children and help at this time of great need of help. May the Lord bless you.

Yours in Christ,

Deogratias NIYONZIMA
President & Legal Representative
Christian Community Development Burundi
P.O.Box 6972 Bujumbura
BURUNDI, AFRICA
Telephone: +257-249220
Mobile: +257-979036
E-mail: gdeniy@yahoo.com
Website: www.ccdburundi.org.uk

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