Mrs. Jinga Kabata from the Kanzala health zone in the Tshibemba health area is 35 years old. Mother of: Lwese Jinga son, 18 years old; Mutombo Jinga his 14-year-old daughter; Marie Jinga her 12-year-old daughter; David Jinga his 9-year-old son; Mado Jinga her daughter and Tshanda Jinga her 6-year-old son, is a beneficiary of the BUREKA Project in the Agriculture sector because she returned from Angola to Kanzala/Tshibemba in the village of Muyeji.
My children and I were miserable because we were in Angola during the war. With the exodus of refugees following this calamity, we returned to our village with nothing.
The community’s main source of income is artisanal diamond mining.
We were cast out due to our inability to adapt; mining is reserved for men, but it can be the less profitable same time, as it’s possible to spend an entire month without having anything.
I chose to work in the field mechanically and without technique as a woman and mother of children; I had difficulty finding food, too much fatigue, and sometimes a long period of work without having something. I was about to give up because of the poor harvest. Due to a lack of strength and tillage tools, I relied on bushfire to open the field.
A surface area of more than one hectare did not yield nearly 100 kg of maize, and any other explanation seems illogical to me. I worked too much without better harvesting, and pests sometimes destroyed all the plants that were surrounded by a lot of bushes. We ate with difficulty, and even finding the seed to plant in our land was difficult.
We were identified and received food when ADRA and USAID arrived, and a few months later, we received seeds, agricultural tools, and training on good agricultural practices through the field staff channel. All of this has enabled us to improve our production.
The BUREKA project has accompanied us in many aspects of our lives, but it is agriculture that has changed my life.
My current source of pride is that my fields have already advanced to more technical and improved standards. This allows me to pay for the breeding; after the sale, we were able to harvest a lot of corn and cowpea, and we had a sum of 178,000 FC, which allowed us to buy two pigs for 100,000 FC, which are now in life, and the sow gave birth to five piglets.
My gratitude goes especially to ADRA and USAID for the assistance we received; yesterday when we were without support and strength. We no longer knew how to survive, but ADRA and USAID helped us rediscover the joy of living. Thank you so much. God bless you.