Introducing Chantal Bilulu – Héritiers de la Justice/DRC
Meet Chantal Bilulu, Project Manager for Women, Peace and Security (WPS) program at Héritiers de la Justice in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a KAIROS WPS partner. Chantal has 8 years of experience defending, protecting and promoting human rights with Héritiers de la Justice. She has participated in, and organized trainings on women’s rights, popularization of laws and other legal instruments; and participated in advocacy actions to change policies and strengthen these rights. In her work, Chantal also accompanies survivors of sexual violence and is involved in their paralegal training for their care.
Chantal has agreed to join the KAIROS delegation to lend her experience and expertise working on the intersection of gender, conflict, the climate crisis and resource extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. About the impacts of climate change in the DRC, Chantal states:
“Here, in our country, women and girls engage in agriculture and husbandry and now, with the disruption of the climate and the consequences of climate warming, what happens is that women plant but get no harvest. Because of the disruption, there are no yields anymore, there is nothing, no harvest.”
Her message to the Canadian government is for greater solidarity and support for local efforts to enable women and girls to become effective actors in climate justice and peacebuilding:
“We ask the Canadian federal government to help us in our advocacy actions with our national authorities and at the international level, so we can cope with the challenge of global warming. We also ask the Canadian federal government to support our reforestation efforts so that when we plant trees, we can benefit from a stable climate like we had before.”
Watch Chantal’s introductory video.
