About

Coopérative des Projets d’Autonomisation Communautaire de Fizi (COOPAC-FIZI) is a registered Congolese not-for-profit, non-governmental community based organization (CBO) founded in March 2010. COOPAC-FIZI’s mission is  to promote socio-economic empowerment of Fizi communities by improving the quality and delivery of health and education services as well as developing community approaches towards poverty alleviation.

COOPAC-FIZI runs three (2) progam-related investments (PRIs) and five (5) community development projects in South Kivu’s territory of Fizi in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Its PRIs include a nine self-contained bed room Motel and a 15-villa Compound. COOPAC-FIZI’s community development projects include the Centre des Nouvelles Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (CENTICOM), goat keeping project, cattle keeping project, pig rearing prooject et clean drinking water distribution project.

Proceeds from PRIs are used for social interventions, particularly in the health and education sector and funding livelihood improvement projects. Currently, COOPAC-FIZI’s activities are concentrated in Fizi territory but expansion plans to other parts of South Kivu and DRC at large are being evaluated. Brief details about each of our projects is given below.

CENTICOM

CENTICOM’s goal is to address ICT needs of Fizi communities (overwhelmingly rural) by bringing ICT services closer to them. The Center offers two main services namely International Computer Driving Licence training (ICDL training) and cybercafé (which offers internet, photocopy, printing, plastification, binding and other services). CENTICOM is also equipped with a conference room and pump-well installation. Clean water from the well also serves surrounding communities. For ICDL training purposes, COOPAC-FIZI works in partnership with Swirtzerland-based ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence). The biggest challenge as far as CENTICOM is concerned is to ensure its financial self-sufficiency.

MOTEL Baraka

Motel Baraka’s goal is to increase COOPAC-FIZI’s financial capacity to ssupport the education and health sectors as well as develop and pilot community approaches towards poverty alleviation. The Motel offers such services as accomodation, conference venue, restaurant, catering and grocery.

Compound Mutuli

Compound Mutuli’s goal is to increase COOPAC-FIZI’s financial capacity to intervene in the education and health sectors as well as develop and pilot community approaches towards poverty alleviation. The compound consists of 15 villas comprising each 1 bed room, 1 dinning room, 1 kitchen, and toilet/bath facilities. It opened on February 1st, 2012 and was rented by Banro Corporation for six-months.

Livestock Keeping Projects

COOPAC-FIZI implements two livestock keeping projects namely goat rearing project and cattle keeping project in Kananda and Kasakwa villages respectively. These projects’ goal is to improve the livelihood of Kananda and Kasakwa communities. The majority of people in these conflict-affected areas are returnees from both internal (within Congo) and external (neighboring countries) displacement. To achieve the stated goal, (i) after being empowered with initial 65 goats, 25 COOPAC-FIZI’s Kananda members have been distributing a number of goats to new households in Kananda every three-six months and now have 62 beneficiary households with plans to reach as many households as possible in Kananda and surrounding villages; and (ii) after being empowered with 25 pigs, Kasakwa villagers have transformed pig rearing into cattle keeping, with plans to initiate other IGAs including an intra-village loan scheme and a maize mill.

 Support to Education and Health Sectors

Proceeds from COOPAC-FIZI’s PRIs helped fund renovation works at Baraka secondary school and Mama Yemo primary school and donate 250 school desks to 5 primary and secondary schools (Baraka sec. school (75), Charité sec. school (45), Lunga prim. school (50), Isee prim. school (40) and Naeo Milanga prim. school (40) between December 2012 and January 2013. Our next interventions will target the health sector.