Canada urged direct women’s aid to small, grassroots groups
OTTAWA — Faida Mwangilwa is vetting 78 applications for 26 projects that will direct cash to women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where poverty and rape as a weapon of war have created no shortage of need.
The grants she gives out will be small, in the hundreds of dollars — not thousands or millions. But they will provide crucial support dealing with big challenges such as fighting sexual assault, training midwives and educating women about their rights.
“The women of the DRC represent more than 51 per cent (of the population) and if these women don’t participate in the management of public affairs, it’s a lost opportunity for the country,” says Mwangilwa, the administrator of the Congolese Women’s Fund, in an interview from Kinshasa.
Mwangilwa’s organization is the type one might expect to receive money under Canada’s new feminist international development policy, which the Trudeau government unveiled earlier this month as part of its foreign policy reboot.