The Communaute des Planteurs et Eleveurs dans la Region Marachaire (COPERMA) founded in 1983 for agricultural development in the North Kivu province of the eastern Congo expanded its mission in the 1990s to include projects targeting victims of war, such as survivors of rape, demobilized child soldiers, orphans, and displaced persons, in response to the psychosocial upheaval caused by tribal warfare. Ten community centers established by COPERMA in ten villages facilitated this expansion of services.

COPERMA will further expand its psychosocial projects in 2012, thanks in part to a new grant by the Martín-Baró Fund. Its new efforts will be three-pronged. Two certified Congolese psychologists will train two community-elected officials in each of the ten communities in which COPERMA has established community centers. The community officials, called “listeners”, will be trained in active listening and advocacy, and sensitized to the effects of sexual violence and of trauma due to stigmatization. Training of the listeners by the psychologists will be conducted on a bi-monthly basis. As a result, the listeners will be prepared to serve as the primary resource for this program’s effort. In addition, the professional psychologists will run weekly group and individual counseling sessions for those survivors with severe trauma. A third prong of the project will provide vocational training – sewing, soap-making, and bread-baking.