Jasmine Whitbread, Chief Executive Officer of Save the Children UK, has recently returned from a visit to Eastern DRC and Uganda (and briefly Rwanda!) and wanted to share her experience with you. It was a very moving trip, and one that she will always remember.

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I hope my blog gives you some insights into the current issues that are affecting the teams in DRC and Uganda, and probably many of you elsewhere in the world. I had the opportunity to discuss the impact of rising food prices with local women in a Ugandan market, visited a foster family who were looking after former child soldiers and met displaced children and families in a camp just outside Goma.

I discovered while out there that we are in fact running one of the world's largest (if not the largest) child soldier integration programmes. It was in fact UNICEF who told me this -- I really think we need to get less modest and blow our own trumpet more. We are doing so many amazing, inspirational and substantial things for children -- we must get better at telling our own story!

These are just a few of the highlights.

Blog – Jasmine Whitbread’s Trip to North Kivu, East DRC

Monday 16 June

It’s taken me twenty four hours to get from London to Goma -- the main town in North Kivu in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on the border with Rwanda and on the beautiful Lake Kivu. But that’s nothing compared with the thirty six hours it’s taken colleagues from Kinshasa, the capital of DRC in the west of this vast country. They had to come via Addis Ababa -- since internal flights are banned since the fatal crash of the poorly maintained domestic airline.

The sun is shining and there is a pleasant breeze. Not much appears to have changed since I was last here, apart from there is now a computer at the border – though, as someone points out, this is on the Rwanda side. However, as is revealed in the security briefing I get on arrival, a lot has been happening -- and far from all positive. Despite the formal peace process, the number of people displaced by conflict in the Kivus has now swollen to an estimated 1.1 million. UN peacekeeping troops have increased, as have the number of aid agencies in Goma. Save the Children has just moved to a new and bigger office.

Dinner with colleagues and other NGOs in Goma: I’m sitting next to the Director of the International Rescue Committee, and get to quiz him on how he grew such a huge and successful programme, tripling in size to £30m in just four years.

Tuesday 17 June

I’m visiting one of the camps just outside Goma, where eleven thousand people (mainly women and children) are living since fleeing fighting in their villages at the end of last year. Each family has a tiny shelter of sticks and plastic sheeting, and receives half rations of basic food from WFP. It’s grim. Nevertheless, as always, the children crowding round us are smiling and mischievous, and even sing us a song. Despite all they’ve been through, and even now without enough to eat, you get the impression there is still hope in these children. All the more shocking then that no one is really addressing education for these kids. Everyone I raise this with later, in meetings with donors and officials, points to the inherent difficulties of providing education in these circumstances. But we at Save the Children know how to overcome these challenges. Hussein, the Country Director, reassures me that we have an Education Programme Manager starting in a matter of days, and Joe Hall, seconded here from the Secretariat, is helping rustle up Alliance-wide support for a substantial education programme to re-write the future for these children.

I meet with a determined fifteen year old girl, who fled here alone as her parents are dead, and now manages by collecting and selling firewood -- at great personal risk. The team is arranging for her to join another family in the camp willing to look after orphans.

We walk along a little further and I meet one of the women who is looking after separated children, she has taken in four including two little one year olds. Quite clearly she is already badly off, separated from her husband while fleeing, and looking after her own four children. She explains her motivation: she is an orphan herself and was taken in by another family -- so she wants to do the same for others. I’ll never forget that.

Sexual exploitation and abuse is a huge issue in the Kivus. The heads of agencies I meet want to talk to me about our recent report on sexual abuse of children by peacekeepers and aid workers. It’s really encouraging to see how respected Save the Children is for this work and how seriously the recommendations are being taken -- especially by OCHA who is exploring with other agencies how to set up local complaints mechanisms.

In between meetings we nip to the local market to see for ourselves what’s happening to food prices here. It’s a busy, vibrant place with mounds of sweet potatoes, casava flour, beans and glistening piles of offal! Sure enough though, the prices have almost doubled in the last six months. No one here is very clear why, though the WFP representative later talks me through the complex set of causes ranging from global fuel prices to unpredictable weather patterns locally, to the conflict itself, which is stopping people from working their fields.

Wednesday 18 June

It’s another day of glorious weather as we drive to a suburb of Goma, past the volcanoes on one side and the lake on the other. I’m going to visit a transitional foster family that has taken in two sixteen year old boys who have just escaped from a rebel fighting force.

The house we arrive at is modest and inside the family’s four children are about to set off for school. Also sitting quietly with the family are Pascal and Luc (not their real names) who tell me their story. Abducted with six other boys while at scouts club seven months ago, they have been forced to fight, loot and terrorise local villages on pain of death. Four of the other scouts with them have died. Of the thirty strong “battalion”, the majority were boys and girls between the ages of ten and sixteen. Despite what he’s been through, Pascal’s chief concern is for the children he left behind when he escaped. That, and completing his studies -- he wants to know if Save the Children can help him get back to school. His family has been traced and we are expecting him to be reunited soon.

The foster parents admit to me that they did have some concerns about having two ex combatants share their home with their young children, but say their fears dissolved once they arrived “they are still just children -- in fact it’s hard to tell the difference with our own” the dad says.

Thursday 19 June – Kampala

I’m now spending a day with Save the Children in Uganda -- exploring with them the impact of food prices on the poorest children.

First stop Owino Market. My challenge is to see if I can buy enough food to feed a typical family of seven for a day -- on a budget of 3,000 Ugandan Shillings (c. $2) -- which is what one of the market women we talk to says she spent on food for her family each day back in January.

I buy sweet potatoes, casava, beans, onions and a little bit of oil, and I’ve nearly run out. I spend the rest on charcoal, but it’s a tiny amount -- not enough to cook the beans. So I’ve almost managed one meal -- but that’s it. Everything I buy has increased by 50% - 100% in the last six months. I ask the women I’m buying from how they cope -- by getting by on just breakfast and then one meal. For the little children this is bad news. And these women are far from the poorest.

Next stop Mulago Hospital to visit the National Child Nutrition Unit, and see what impact food prices might be having at the sharp end. It’s outpatient treatment day and so the grass outside is dotted with colourfully dressed women and their babies. Sadly, they are here because their children need to be treated for malnutrition. Talking to the mothers it’s the same story as I heard in the market -- people are cutting out meals, and withdrawing children from school to cope with rising food prices. But the staff tells us they have not yet seen an increase in cases of severe malnutrition.

In meetings with key UN agencies and donors it’s clear everyone is doing the same as us -- trying to assess the impact of food prices on their programme and beneficiaries and to decide what to say and do about this.

Passing through Rwanda yesterday I bumped into Jen Yablonski, from the Farringdon office, who is working with the team there to explore a social protection system that could protect the most vulnerable against the worst effects of increased food prices. DFID has encouraged us in this -- as we have clearly been leading on this front for some time. I mention this to DFID Uganda, who also think this might be interesting for Northern Uganda. I believe Save the Children should play an ambitious leadership role in response to the food crisis impact on children. Maybe it’s in establishing cash based social protection systems?

Friday 20 June

Time to go home to my own children. It’s been a great trip -- incredibly inspiring. I’m returning with lots of fresh thinking and new energy (“Oh no!” I hear my office groan!).

The teams in DRC, Rwanda and Uganda have put in so much preparation and effort to make my visits worthwhile -- now I must repay this by following up on all the issues we discussed!