Once a Congo orphan herself, Victorine Ngangu announces plan to provide a shelter for children in the next two years.
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — In February as Americans celebrate Black History Month, Victorine Ngangu hopes to focus attention on the plight of the more than 4 million orphaned children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, many of whom are living on the streets with little food, shelter, schooling or hope. Ngangu has a special affinity for these children because she too was an orphan in the Congo, losing her mother to cancer and her father to heart disease when Ngangu was in primary school. The tenth of 11 children, Ngangu knows what it is like to struggle to survive in a third world country.
Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160209/331483
Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160209/331484
But she was lucky; Ngangu came to the U.S. when she was a teenager, and graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2002, a year after taking an eye-opening trip back to the Congo. There she witnessed the unconscionable living conditions of street orphans and decided she had to do something about it.
In 2008, she incorporated the nonprofit Help Children of Africa, to provide food and clothes for the orphans and street children. She envisions raising $300,000 for the land and shelter.
Ngangu can talk about:
- Shocking statistics: one in seven children in the Congo dies before age 5 and 25 percent of children are underweight.
- Deplorable living conditions: few people have safe drinking water or access to sanitary toilets.
- Lack of education: half of children who should be going to school don't go.
- The cruelty of parental death: when parents die, relatives usually seize the family home and possessions, leaving the surviving children with nothing.
- Help the Children's mission: what it has accomplished and what it hopes to do.
- What you can do: how to help through donations or buying puzzles or pencil cases.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victorine Ngangu is president of Help Children of Africa and the author of two books, In the Heart of Our Souls containing the stories of her Congo ancestors, and Eyes of Africa, an examination of the politics, poverty and corruption in Zaire (Download the eBooks). She was born in the province of Kimpese and has lived in Los Angeles for decades.
AVAILABILITY: Los Angeles, nationwide by arrangement and via telephone
CONTACT: Victorine Ngangu, 310-341-3891; Email;