New Day Stories - September 2022
Counseling
“Mae37” is a 37-year-old married woman and mother of four children. She was undergone many family and marital life difficulties, and she no longer found any reason to stay in her home with her husband, who no longer accepted her. Still, she could not leave her home because she did not have anywhere else to turn. She stayed under the marital roof for a long time with limitations which created several problems in her health, namely: intense headaches, depression, and recently diagnosis with stroke.
She got in touch with the UJN counseling department, where we decided to take a journey with her to restore her mental and possibly physical health. As a result, she first accepted her situation and began to work on herself by developing listening skills and communication techniques in her marriage.
Thanks to the individual psychological support from our Counseling services, she found a solution to her problem, worked positively on the things that arose in her marriage and improved her health conditions.
Now that she has developed a good relationship with her husband, she is working for her family's good well-being and welfare. She is ready to take new initiatives, even going back to work.
Women of Congo (WOC)
The WOC department has recently organized training for Un Jour Nouveau’s female teachers and wives of teachers on leadership and female entrepreneurship with very positive outcomes.
Miss José, a kindergarten educator, thanked Un Jour Nouveau because she now sees her future with a positive attitude full of opportunities. She became a mother in her teenage years because she had always thought, by the culture of her tribe, this is what was expected. A girl could benefit her family from receipt of the dowry, thus making her parents proud. She saw this path much more realistic than one with going to school.
Unfortunately, she has passed on this way of thinking to her daughters, encouraging them to get married too soon, and she now has several grandchildren. Her children and grandchildren have endured multiple challenges by not being taught the basics of responsible parenting. Because of poverty in their homes, some of her children have returned to seek help from their parents, who have minimal means. Now Miss Jose finds herself overwhelmed with the burdens of meeting the endless demands of her children's families, who are not well equipped to face life.
She regrets only taking the “Awakening of Women of Congo” training at her age. She said that if she had followed the movement 40 years ago, she could have avoided many mistakes, and her family would have experienced a different outcome.
She appreciates that it is always possible to change and influence the change around you despite your mistakes. She has decided to start her first small group with her daughters to train them to be true entrepreneurial leaders to change their situation. She chose to work with her children to help them find solutions to their problems for improved living conditions. Instead of giving them fish every time, she resolved to teach them how to fish so that they had to eat it every day.
Sons of Congo (SOC)
My name is Samuel MITABA, and I completed Level 1 and Level 2 on responsible masculinity in 2018 and received my certificate. After this training, I created two influence groups within my Buhene neighborhood. I can confirm through experience that the teachings offered by UJN are beneficial. I am a strong and dynamic man because I was challenged by the first page of the first module, where the image of the man from Congo is painted. This image made a strong impression on me; from there, I understood that “everything that can be undertaken with the fear of God must succeed and will make it possible to provide for the needs of the family.”
An unfortunate event happened to my family last year as we were victims of the Nyiragongo volcano eruption the previous year. I lost my house in the lava flow, and all my belongings were consumed in the destruction. Thanks to the teachings and spiritual toolbox I possessed, I did not complain and victimize myself like so many others who have experienced this same tragedy. During this time, I maintained my positive attitude, self-reliance, self-control, and holding hope, all thanks to the teachings of the awakening curriculum of the Sons of Congo. We understood that despite the volcanic eruption, despite losing almost everything in terms of materials, life still goes on, and we must not give up while waiting for manna to fall from the sky.
Today, I am an entrepreneur; I manufacture and sell liquid soaps and chlorine slime and make deliveries all over the city, sometimes even by phone call. This allows me to feed my family and rebuild my house (in sheet metal), which was burned down in the last volcanic eruption.
For me, I can say that SOC training is advantageous because:
It helps men to be able to face the ups and downs of life
It allows men to discover themselves and change their own opinion of themselves
It helps men to no longer see themselves as problems but rather as solutions
It gives us the confidence and the courage to tell others and convince them to follow the training because they see our transformation.
The knowledge I have received, I have already passed on and will continue into the future.
Generation Hope
I (ESPERANCE) first encountered Un Jour Nouveau during its “Afterschool Program” activity in 2006, where I regularly attended and followed the lessons. By the grace of God, I was selected in 2013 to benefit from school sponsorship.
Un Jour Nouveau helped us a lot by paying school fees for us for five years and providing the supplies needed for our education. We studied in acceptable conditions, and as we learned, God blessed us with a greater capacity to understand. We succeeded every year and passed classes.
Last school year (2019), we were candidates for state exams and were a little scared, but our mentors gave us a lesson called "how to overcome anxiety during state exams." This lesson equipped us well, and we were confident in God and ourselves. We were able to obtain our state diplomas with satisfaction. We then pursued nursery pedagogy training (teaching kindergarten) at CSPMF, and UJN sponsored me; currently, we are engaged in the UJN school as kindergarten educators.
Today, we decided to support two orphans in secondary school, and we will pay the total school fees. We also know that what we have benefited from Un Jour Nouveau, others also need it.
Long live Un Jour Nouveau, and may God bless the whole organization
Leadership Academy
The story of Papa Moïse begins with his contact with the Leadership Academy. He finished the academy in 2021 at 68 years old. He was at the end of his life and interested in one of his friends who was a little younger than him. When he took inventory of his life, everything was alarming in his life everything was red. According to his assessment of his own life, he had the impression of having accomplished nothing; he had no house, no actual possessions, and no ideas; in addition, he had just lost his wife. In short, nothing was working, and he felt more and more discouraged. He started at Level I, and with each module he completed, he found himself encouraged, motivated, invigorated, and even transformed to the point where one day, he made this strong, touching, and striking statement: "I have the impression of starting my life on the evening of life."
The training he took with us (Level I and II) helped him put the pieces of the puzzle of his life back together, put his ideas in order, and turn them into a project he could work on and make a company.
He finished the leadership academy, having become very courageous, already having self-esteem, and seeing himself as a solution to problems. He created his own company called CIF (Congo Independent Facilitator), which works in agriculture utilizing his experience as an engineer trained in agronomy.
Currently, he spends time at the UJN HUB incubator, where we help him apply for various funding projects because the projects that fit with agribusiness have been sought after in the market.
He continues to excel in his business, and we bless the Lord for that.