Singer and activist Miriam Makeba travels to the Democratic Republic of
Congo to raise support for the most vulnerable sections of the population in a
country severely hit by war, hunger and disease.

KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (FAO) -
In her role as Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organisation, singer Miriam Makeba visited the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, where she called for more support for HIV/AIDS-affected families and
women survivors of sexual violence. 
    "Let us love them, let us help them, because they are part of
us." Makeba said, after meeting some women farmers near Kinshasa.
    Seventy percent of the Congolese people have difficulty getting enough
food to eat. For those who have HIV/AIDS or who have been raped, social
rejection and illness compound the problem.
    HIV-positive farmer Bienvenue Kalongo says her mother died of AIDS last
year, leaving her to produce food for a household of eight, including five
children. 
    Kalongo received donations of seeds, tools and training from an F-A-O
emergency agricultural rehabilitation programme. Now she grows sweet potatoes,
beans and other crops on a fertile strip of land along the Congo River.
    Aline Okongo, the HIV positive president of a local NGO, says the FAO
programme has helped to fight the stigmatisation of people living with AIDS in
the DRC. 
    "We have finally started to fight again stigmatisation of people
living with HIV. Why? Because before we used to say this is a woman is HIV
positive and people would point at her in the street," said Okongo.
    Okongo added that while people tend to look at a woman with HIV as
someone who cannot do much and who will end up dying, now they can see that
she is growing vegetables for food, that she has crops that she can sell for
income.
    Makeba, widely known as Mamma Africa, visited farms like Kalongo's and
helped to distribute agricultural supplies donated by FAO. 
    "I will not hesitate to take the message to all the countries that
I go to. What I have seen here and what I have heard I will tell the world in
words and song," Makeba said.
    In 2007, the FAO emergency rehabilitation programme targeted a
half-million vulnerable households, or as many as two million people,
including orphans, families displaced by war, and former combatants. 
    The programme is part of a coordinated effort among international and
local humanitarian organisations. It is supported in part by pooled U.N. funds
and individual donor countries like Belgium.
    "Very few fortunately are now dying of direct violence," said
the humanitarian coordinator Ross Mountain.
    "Most are dying of the effects of the war, health-related often,
water, sanitation, disease and, alas, in this country, with so much water and
good soil, also malnutrition. So it is a dire situation, but there is
hope," he added.
    As Makeba sang with local farmers, it was not so much a celebration, as
a show of solidarity.