Sud-Ouest Développement
Founded in 1998, Sud-Ouest Développement (SOD) is a women-led, community-based organization that works in communities with very high rates of illiteracy (90% among women), where girls are married as young as nine years old.
With their Changemakers grant SOD will focus primarily on girls’ education, and plans to set up a hybrid digital library for girls in the Haut Katanga province, create girls’ clubs for mentorship and SRHR education, and also pilot a secondary school scholarship program.
FROM SUD-OUEST DÉVELOPPEMENT
We feel deeply grateful to have been selected for a Changemakers grant. It is a meaningful acknowledgment of the work we have been doing for years alongside communities in the Lufira Valley. We operate in environments where progress is often slow, and at times seems almost nonexistent, where resources are limited, and where trust must be built patiently, day after day. Knowing that this sustained effort has been seen and believed in matters greatly to us.
The grant gives us the opportunity to strengthen what we are already building in Kapulua, to broaden the horizons of our community members, and to offer them realistic and dignified future prospects. It allows us to grow toward something more structured, more stable, and ultimately more impactful for the girls and families we serve. Through initiatives like our Digital Learning Center in Kapulua, we hope to create spaces that are safe, welcoming, and rooted locally, while opening doors to the wider world.
Our dream is simple, but ambitious. We want girls in our communities to grow up safe, educated, and confident in their own value, free from early marriage, able to stay in school, and supported by families and communities that see their potential rather than their vulnerability. We want them to have real choices: the ability to continue their education, to acquire practical and digital skills, and to imagine a future that goes beyond survival.
Ultimately, we dream of a generation of girls who do not just benefit from support, but who grow into women who contribute, lead, and give back helping to build stronger families, more resilient communities, and a future that is shaped from within.