The Californer - The Refugee Archive Launches Campaign to Preserve 21 Female-Headed Household Oral Histories in Rebel-Controlled Goma

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The Refugee Archive: Help Preserve Oral Histories

The Refugee Archive: Your Support is Critical

The campaign will record long-form oral histories from internally displaced single mothers living through conflict in North Kivu.

NEWARK, Del. & GOMA, Congo, The DR of - Californer -- The Refugee Archive has launched a crowdfunding campaign to collect and preserve 21 oral histories with internally displaced single mothers living in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Goma is the capital of North Kivu Province in eastern DRC. The city has been at the center of conflict since January 2025, continuing to date. UN statement.

Women participating in the oral history project are raising children while conflict, displacement, disrupted services, and rebel authority shape daily life. Their accounts, as connected to their life stories, are being recorded in real time, not reconstructed years after the conflict has ended. Listen Now

"The women of Goma hold knowledge no institution currently has," said Kristi Dawn Riggs, Founder of The Refugee Archive. "They understand how displacement actually functions, how it reshapes family life, education, documentation, employment, and safety, because they live inside those systems every day. That knowledge is not anecdotal. It's evidence. And right now, it exists only in memory. Once public attention moves elsewhere, so does the chance to record it. We are not asking people to care because these women deserve to be heard, though they do. We're not building a memorial. We're building a record that policy, research, and future response can actually use."

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Each oral history includes at least four hours of recorded testimony and continues across several days. A trained team member is present throughout. Interpretation is provided and the narrator (the oral history participant) decides what to share, when to pause, and what may be preserved or published.

Campaign funding will remove practical barriers to participation, including childcare, transportation, meals, mobile data, interpretation, a private interview space, and help replacing lost identification documents.

A completed oral history costs approximately $1,200 from the first conversation through archival. That amount supports participant assistance, translation, human-reviewed transcription, secure digital storage, cataloging, and preparation of the audio and related records for eventual preservation in a university special collection.

With each narrator's consent, selected material also support articles, educational resources, videos, and a planned DRC youth arts and policy research program.

"We are there, and the work has started," Riggs said. "We need the resources to complete these 21 histories, carrying the project to the end of the year, ensuring voices are preserved."

Our on the ground partner says, "The oral history interviews gave women a safe space to share pain, begin a healing journey, and have voices heard internationally. We believe their stories will help others see them not as victims or people marked by shame, but as women of courage whose experiences can inspire hope and understanding. There are many more women in our communities who need this opportunity. We hope this partnership continues so that more survivors can tell their stories and preserve their histories. We also believe these oral histories will help their children understand that they are not the result of shame, but a testimony to their mothers' resilience and strength," PCR Foundation.

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The campaign seeks $25,000 by September 20, 2026. To contribute, visit GiveButter.

About The Refugee Archive
The Refugee Archive is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that records and preserves oral histories of single mothers and female-headed households living in active displacement around the world, as refugees or as internally displaced. Learn more at The Refugee Archive