3 months ago, we launched the Congo Child Feeding appeal. In 2023, orphaned and malnourished children began arriving in the small town of Sake, near Goma, fleeing the war in North Kivu. Comfort Congo responded by finding shelter through churches and local families, while providing emergency food to keep the children alive. As the conflict worsened in 2025, many were displaced again into camps around Goma, where starvation and severe malnutrition threatened their lives and futures. When M23 forces later destroyed the camps, the children fled back to Sake once more. Today, Comfort Congo is caring for 107 orphans full-time and feeding another 500 vulnerable children every week. This feeding program costs £1500 a month — and we urgently need regular donors to help continue this work.
Our Creative Manager, Chris Hoskins, wanted to share some of his thoughts about the Project and the Appeal with you through this blog.
As with all the campaigns, projects and people Comfort International supports, this is a life changing project. I wanted to write about it from a personal perspective after the profound impact spending time with these children had on me on my last visit to DRC in July 2025. This appeal, this ongoing support means so much to the children in Sake being fed through this project. After visiting and spending time with the children, it means a lot to me as well, I’m determined that we continuously pray and ask for the resources needed to support these children.
Having visited some of these children the previous summer when they were in the Internally Displaced Peoples Camps (IDP) in Goma and having heard about the conditions in Sake from our amazing Comfort Congo partners, I was expecting the visit to be an emotionally difficult one. We had been told by Comfort Congot that there were around 50 children (another 50 were staying at a house run by the Baptist Church in Goma) staying at the Sake Orphanage who were fed daily by the Comfort Congo team. On top of this, hundreds of local children from families unable to sustain themselves due to the many issues facing North Kivu at the moment.
I wasn’t wrong, every single one of us who visited that day were incredibly moved by what the children had lived through, but also by the kindness and joy that we experienced that day.
The Comfort Congo team does an incredible job in so many ways. The concern, compassion and care we saw them treat the children at Sake with was inspirational. The Comfort team’s role on the visit was straightforward – help serve the food and give out the plates.(It sounds a lot easier than it was). This quickly became one of the most challenging things I’ve been part of, both emotionally and logistically!
We had 3 or 4 hundred hungry children desperate to be given a plate. It was chaotic, loud, hot and most of the team could not really understand much of what was being said. It was overwhelming for everyone involved – yet the Comfort Congo team did an incredible job of communicating with us and keeping us focused.
As Creative Manager, my role is to focus on telling the stories and how best to use images to communicate the needs to those who might never get the chance to see it first hand. In the midst of chaos and desperation it was hard not to notice the kindness around us, tiny children who couldn’t get through the crowds being served by the older children first who then had to rejoin the queues. It was selflessness in a way that I’ve never witnessed before. There were some who even came with small plastic bags to take food away for others who couldn’t come.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless when visiting a project before. I’m aware that it can look odd, perhaps voyeuristic doing the work I do, standing with my cameras while all of this unfolds in front of me and others from the Comfort team get stuck in trying to help and love in as practical a way as possible.
I’ve always known and held fast to the impact I know the photos and videos taken in these situations can be, it’s a struggle to hold on to that logic and knowledge when faced with the immense, immediate need in front of you, and there are times when the cameras have to go away and the need dealt with first (and this was very much one of those times!).
There is a call on our lives to be the hands and feet of Jesus here on earth today. To consider supporting this work isn’t just another charity appeal, It is showing God’s kingdom here on earth.
Comfort International are doing all we can to make sure these children are fed to live and we would love if you joined us.
Please do consider supporting this appeal on an ongoing basis if you are able to. It would mean the world to us at Comfort International and it would mean the world to the children in Sake.
