Meet nine-year-old Annie Kalenga Nkungwe

Leaving a legacy can have a profound impact on people’s lives. It can provide food and education for people like Annie Kalenga Nkungwe.

Meet nine-year-old Annie Kalenga Nkungwe. Annie would like to be a “mwalimu” or teacher when she grows up. Annie enjoys swimming in the river in her native village of Monga, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo province of Katanga. As for food, she is very fond of miteke groundnuts, or groundnuts fried on the stove.

Household chores

Annie is the second eldest of a single-parent family of six children. As her mother is too sick to work, Annie’s fifteen year old sister works on the small family plot while Annie takes care of household chores, like washing clothes at the stream, cooking and looking after her siblings.

Seed distributions

At the end of 2007, Concern distributed 8kg of groundnut seeds and 10kg of beans seeds to Annie’s family, together with tools to prepare the fields. Before Concern’s distributions of seeds and tools in central Katanga, Annie and her family were eating only one meal a day.

Enjoying the harvest

Annie’s sister was able to harvest 23kg of groundnut with the seeds distributed. The family is now eating two nutritious meals a day. “When my children eat groundnuts, they are healthy and playful. When food is lacking, they cry a lot” says Annie’s mother. The family also sold some of the harvest to buy household necessities and more importantly retained some seeds for the next planting season.

Problems remain

Annie’s family remains in a very precarious situation as food becomes scarce before the next harvest. Concern will continue to support Annie and her vulnerable family through long-term livelihoods projects, helping them extricate themselves from pernicious cycles of poverty and hunger. This will hopefully give Annie a chance to fulfil her dream of getting an education.

For more information about legacies please contact Kevin Byrne: kevin.byrne@concern.net or phone ++ 353 1 417 7709.