András Domonyai is about to travel to Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His is to co-ordinate our project called ‘With Clean Water for the Future of Congolese Children’. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is among the most underdeveloped countries of the world. One of the main reasons for poverty, low standard of living, and for sanitation issues there stems from the shortage of clean water and inadequate hygenic conditions. In accordance with Hungarian as well as international objectives, the Foundation for Africa intends to tackle the problem in its local Social and Educational Centre and nearby within the framework of the so called ‘Vízibility - With Clean Water for the Future of Congolese Children’ project.

András Domonyai, a rural development expert will be the co-ordinator of our project. András is an economist by profession. His later career in gastrobotany started with a blog called MonJardin! - Garden in the Kitchen. The function of the blog is to gather and spread the information on edible plants. Monjardin! started off with educational purposes. András raised attention to the fact that plants can be grown anywhere, even on a balcony. The blog is about rediscovering all the different types of plants already known.

From 2013 to 2015 András worked in Kenya. He was experimenting with new types of plants in Bura Mission village in order to facilitate the self-supporting operation of an orphanage of the Hungarian Taita Foundation. ‘Our ultimate goal was to change the “old” types and species of vegetables and plants which were grown in traditional ways and whose nutritive content was low for entirely new ones. The objective was to have a selection of species which were better in taste, were more nutritive, promised much higher yields, were easier to care for and did not require spraying.’

András is soon to begin his work in Kinshasa. We are going to carry out our water management and development project together with him.

In the meantime we have started developing and renovating the heating and lighting infrastructure of our Kinshasa Centre. The concrete pillars which will hold the 5000 m3 water tank are already under construction. The water tank will enable a continuous access to clean water at the school and at the orphanage alike. The current sewerage system will also be renovated at a later point, plus we plan to launch sanitation-related educational sessions.

Our long-term goal is to alleviate poverty, to improve sanitary conditions as well as the living standard of the community, and to bring about a change in the attitude and mentality of the locals. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is subsidizing the project with an amount of 5 million HUF. However, a further 600.000 HUF is still needed in order for the project to be realized. You can also leave a trace in Africa by supporting our Foundation so that even more children in Congo may get access to clean drinking water.

A further collaborator in the project is the Danube Museum.