Kinshasa, April 1st, 2025 (CPA) – Women and girls have been trained to make handbags to empower themselves, during a training session launched on Monday for women from the Congo River Batiste Community (CBCO), in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
« On this day, the end of Women’s Month, we have launched a 3-month handbag-making training course for our mothers and young girls to empower them, » has declared Charlene Baliyo, coordinator of the Ekunda Foundation. « We want to train you so that you can be trained and transform your daily lives and those around you. Making the handbags that we are teaching you today will be a way for you to start an income-generating activity to combat begging », she has added. According to Ms Baliyo, idleness or inactivity exposes girls to depravity, theft and prostitution. « We need girls and women of good character who are capable of defending our community. Today, we have 20 girls and mothers who will be continuing this apprenticeship, and after the snack, they will also be out in the field training other women », she has emphasised, before calling on unemployed women to train to take charge of their own lives. Created in 2019, the « Ekunda » foundation works to support girls from the age of 18, girl mothers and mothers of the CBCO.