{"id":232,"date":"2011-02-24T09:53:24","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T09:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=232"},"modified":"2012-03-02T14:21:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T19:21:00","slug":"brick-by-brick-in-the-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2011\/02\/24\/brick-by-brick-in-the-congo\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick by Brick In the Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_233\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-233\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-233\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2011\/02\/015_opt-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jean de Dieu Tshileu &#039;07 (center) with fellow workers in the Congo<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Doug Kulungu, a guest columnist in the Dec. 6, 2010, issue of the  Mennonite Weekly Review, cited these heartbreaking statistics for the  Democratic Republic of the Congo, his home country: \u201cMore than 6 million  have died, 300,000 women have been raped, and Congolese still live in  horrifying conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jean de Dieu Tshileu<\/strong>, a 2007 economics graduate of EMU born and  raised in the Congo, is determined to change this situation. With energy  and determination similar to that of Greg Mortenson (author of <em>Three  Cups of Tea<\/em>) in Afghanistan, Jean is going individual by individual,  church by church, group by group in an effort to raise money for \u201cbetter  education and income-generating agriculture activities\u201d in the eastern  part of the Congo, one of the most decimated regions in Africa. He calls  it the \u201cTusome-Congo Project.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his non-profit business plan, Jean writes: \u201cTusome-Congo will  start by building one school in one village and then provide seed funds  to cooperatives. This process will continue by using the same frame of  \u2018One Village at a Time.\u2019 This model will be replicated from one  successful village to another, starting with the closest to the city of  Goma.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jean reasons that such development will discourage villagers from  joining the armed groups now roaming through the region by providing  them with alternative ways to survive.<\/p>\n<p>Similar to Mortenson\u2019s description of building schools in  Afghanistan, Jean says the cost of building and equipping a seven-room  school in the eastern Congo is low by US standards \u2013 about $29,000.<\/p>\n<p>Jean\u2019s first project \u2013 a combined church-school building \u2013 is  underway, thanks to $5,000 in seed money provided by a group at Park  View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Materials have been  purchased for erecting a building for a group (translated as) the  Christian Assembly of Spiritual Revival in Goma. The group has already  filed its first quarterly report on expenditures, detailing the cost of  nails, cement and metal for the roof.<\/p>\n<p>The report included a sobering paragraph, however. One of the  members of this church, a wife and a mother of 10 named \u201cSophie,\u201d died  after being assaulted and raped by gunmen. She was trapped while trying  to buy merchandise in another city to bring to the market in Goma.<\/p>\n<p>Persons wishing more information on the Tusome-Congo Project can reach Jean de Dieu Tshileu at jdt987@gmail.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doug Kulungu, a guest columnist in the Dec. 6, 2010, issue of the Mennonite Weekly Review, cited these heartbreaking statistics for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his home country: \u201cMore than 6 million have died, 300,000 women have been raped, and Congolese still live in horrifying conditions.\u201d Jean de Dieu Tshileu, a 2007 economics [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[87,148,190],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fallwinter-2010-11","category-magazine","tag-jean-de-dieu-tshileu","tag-music","tag-tusome-congo-project","issues-fallwinter-2010-11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":970,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions\/970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}