BD peacekeepers’ skill training changes lives of Congolese

Bangladeshi peackeepers are conducting vocational training in mobile phone repair and imparting computer courses to 400 youths, including women in the Northern Sector of Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).                
Bangladesh Rapidly Deployable Battalion (BANRDB) conducts the capacity-building  training. According to local leaders of Ituri province the training received by the trainees is one of the transition programmes implemented to ensure effective     community-level conflict resolution and prevention platforms through provision of livelihood-skills training to the most vulnerable groups especially the unemployed people.                         
Business and Entrepreneur Minister of Ituri province  Ézéchiel Bahati Muki told the Daily Observer that  training serves as one of the ways of reducing the level of unemployment by providing self-employment schemes and to utilize manpower of the youth to the fullest extent. He thanked Bangladeshi peacekeeping force BANRDB for imparting vocational training to the people of Bunia.                                         
The Congolese minister believes that the training would help the trainees get more job opportunities and increase their incomes.
Abdul Kasim, a resident of Bunia, told this correspondent that he has taken computer training from the Bangladeshi peacekeepers. "After completing the course I taught several people in the last three months. This course is very helpful," he said.  
Around 200 youths of Bunia area have already taken computer training from BANRBD force, said Josef  Eto, another Congolese youth. "We have opened a mobile repairing shop here and are able to run our livelihood smoothly, he added.                                               
Planning and Budget Minister of Ituri province  Kakoraki Baguma Pascal while talking to this correspondent said, "At the end of the training programme each trainee is awarded a set of tools as a start-up support to their related activities."
CIMIC is an interaction between military and non-military actors (like local population and community leaders) whose purpose is to support the peacekeeping mission, through information exchange, mutual assistance, joint project planning, negotiation and coordination of conflict resolution endeavours.
The Peace Operations Training Institute notes that CIMIC provides an interface between the military component of a UN peace operation and the political, humanitarian, developmental, human rights, and rule-of-law components of the mission, as well as many other external partners in the larger peace-building system. It is a key component of any complex peace operation because it is central to the mission to achieve a system-wide impact on the conflict it is attempting to transform.