What PCP is doing

The PCP was started in 1966 by family and friends of Dr. Paul Carlson. Their purpose was to continue supporting the medical work that he had done, among the people he loved so much in Congo. For some years, the main thing the PCP did was to raise money to support the hospital at Loko, which is named after him (though Dr. Paul worked mostly at another hospital, in the town of Wasolo).

Still today, the health of the people of the Ubangi region is an important priority for us. But now we are also helping with education, and we are working hard to help the economic needs of the area. (Do you know what "economic" means? It has to do with money: what people need and how they get it.) 

Helping people stay healthy
Girl on crutchesOur main partner in Congo is the Covenant Church of Congo, called the CEUM. (CEUM is short for a long French name!) The CEUM runs 4 hospitals in the Ubangi, and they are building a fifth. They also have 93 clinics in the area. The CEUM hospitals, especially the main hospital at Karawa, used to be known in the whole area as good hospitals, and they could mostly pay their own bills. But then a civil war started in 1998 and went on until 2003, and they lost most of what they had. Their equipment was stolen, their buildings were damaged, and their systems for electricity and clean water were destroyed. What's more, they couldn't get any money from their patients because they had lost everything too!

So the Paul Carlson Partnership raises about $200,000 every year to help those hospitals and clinics keep running. We also raise another $125,000 to pay for medicines they need, and we are sending some basic equipment to all the clinics. Some of them don't even have a stethoscope, or even a thermometer! We also help with other things related to health, like HIV/AIDS, and nutrition for children. (Read more on the main PCP website.)

Helping kids learn
The CEUM also runs a large school system in the Ubangi. They have 423 elementary and secondary schools, with about 80,000 students! These schools, too, were greatly damaged in the war. We help provide the books that the teachers need in order to teach the classes. We've put new metal roofs on some schools that had just thatch roofs, and we are raising money for new blackboards and new benches for the kids to sit on. (Read more on the main PCP website.)

Helping families get money
School in CongoMost of the people in Congo, and especially in the Ubangi region, have no way to earn money. And when they don't have much money, they can't pay for the things their families need, like going to school or going to the doctor. That's why so many girls don't get to go to school very long: when parents don't have enough money to pay for all their kids to go, they send the boys and not the girls.

So we are working to help people make ways to earn money. One of our projects helps the farmers. Most of them have just grown enough for their families, but now we are helping them to grow bigger crops so they can sell some of the produce. We're also helping other people to buy the foods from the farmers (so the farmers get some money) and take them all the way to Kinshasa, the capital, where they can sell them for the highest prices. That person is called a wholesaler, and he makes money too when he sells the farmer's foods. This is called "agricultural (farm) microenterprise (little business)."

Transportable sawmill

We have also helped people start other small businesses, like making soap or bricks to sell, cutting trees into lumber with a sawmill machine they can move from one place to another, and pressing palm oil from the nuts of an oil palm tree. (They sell the palm oil to be used for soap and in some foods.)

And we give some people bicycles, which they use to make money by carrying bundles of food or other stuff, or by using it as a taxi. They pay back the cost of the bicycle from their earnings -- and then we use that money to buy more bikes for other people to start earning. All these different kinds of small businesses are part of "microenterprise." (Read more on the main PCP website.)

A real partnership
Workers on a truckIn everything we do, we always work together with the Congolese people. They are smart, strong, and courageous people. Only a few years ago some of them had to take their families and run into the forest to hide from the war. Sometimes they stayed in the forest for days or even weeks before they could be sure it was safe to go back to their homes. And when they went back, they found most of their things damaged or destroyed or stolen.

Yet, in spite of the terrible things they've been through, the people are still cheerful and full of hope. They are friendly and generous people, who welcome visitors with singing and dancing, and food and gifts. People who go to the Congo with PCP volunteer work teams come back saying how much they have learned from the people there.

 

See how kids can help