In concerted effort with other NGOs and with the financing of UNDP, COOPI operates within the multisectorial project “Together for peace” to mitigate the great number of problems that have been affecting Eastern Congo for years.

Besides favouring the reconciliation between local farmers and breeders communities, fostering the economic development and allowing indigenous populations to access public services, COOPI strives to provide protection and inclusive support for more than 460,000 vulnerable young persons, emarginated from the social fabric and victims of discrimination.

This aim is achieved both by increasing their chances to access basic social and financial services and by promoting protection strategies at community level. Moreover, gender-based violence is a phenomenon affecting 50% of the local female population, favoured by negative cultural norms that are common and widely accepted. COOPI fights such issue through awareness-raising activities aimed not only to show people its consequences, but also to obtain better legal assistance for the survivors of gender-based violence, now hardly protected.