On September 16, an annual meeting of the steering committee in the Democratic Republic of Congo was held for the sixth and last time to review the Batela Mwana (“protect the child” in the local Lingala language) project, which is coming to an end in a few weeks.
The Steering Committee is the key monitoring body of the project and is composed of members of the project stakeholders and partners. It allows everyone to follow its implementation, to get involved in its realization and to take stock of the results observed. This year, the Steering Committee brought together, among others, the Minister of Social Affairs (ministry in charge of the project), Mrs. Rose Boyata Monkaju, IBCR institutional partners in the DRC, as well as the Head of Canadian Cooperation in the DRC, and our project team.
The objective of this last meeting was to make a synthesis of the Batela Mwana project, which aimed at strengthening the skills of police, justice and social work personnel, which is coming to an end after 5 years of implementation. It was therefore rich in discussions on the results obtained and ways to sustain the project and its effects. The 26 participants also validated the project’s annual report and work plan, promoting ownership of its objectives at the national level. The health situation related to Covid-19 and the measures that had to be adopted in the last months to maintain the project activities were also discussed.
In accordance with the recommendations of the steering committee, the Board is now preparing for the closing of Batela Mwana, which will take place at the end of November. Several activities are on the agenda, including the publication of an end-of-project document and a recognition event organized in Kinshasa with the project's main stakeholders.
National media coverage also helped mark this last key stage of the project among the Congolese population.