In the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in the depths of the jungle of tropical Africa, lies Tshumbe town. It is in the district of Katako-Kombe in the province of Sankuru. Tshumbe is also the name of the Roman Catholic diocese, the size of Austria, serving this area.

Manuela, a concerned development worker, with her base at a school in Tshumbe, in addition to reporting several deaths and injuries from lightning deaths, also wrote about their school being attacked when students at another (public) school died from lightning because the people thought their private school had called down lightning on the public school to force students to pay tuition and go to the private school.

With Manuela's comments and other reports, we have decided it is time to move from 'myths' that are merely funny or entertaining to begin addressing those that are frankly dangerous. In this issue, the belief that a person can, either by themselves or by hiring a witch, 'call down' lightning to injure people, animals or property in order to profit or get revenge from the incident. 

Belief that lightning can be controlled by supernatural powers causes people to think they can do nothing about it except hire a more powerful witch or Sangoma or use more muthi. It diverts those concerned from searching for existing scientific solutions or using proven preventive measures. It also sets up social conflicts when the parents from one school attack those from another who they suspect of initiating the witchcraft.

This comes at a time when ACLENet, through one of its technology partners,Vaisala, started lightning alerts at Shone Primary School near Hoima town in Uganda. The science of lightning formation, detection and protection are all well established so that it is now possible to form an Early Warning System (EWS) which warns people about impending or nearby lightning so that they can move to safer areas, if available. 

With no lightning safe houses in Tshumbe, no public education about lightning safety, and no lightning alerts as are often available on apps in the US and other developed countries, it is very challenging for ACLENet and partners to find interventions that can save lives while at the same time addressing long held beliefs, taught by generations of parents and elders, such as witches being in control of lightning. However, it is also exciting to have partners like Manuela and her NGO, Future for Tshumbe (Zukunft fuer Tshumbe in German) - https://www.zukunft-fuer-tshumbe.or.at/Zukunft-fuer-Tshumbe-About-us_lang,en,pid,56403,type,firmeninfo.html.

Together with Future for Tshumbe, we are hoping to form a network of volunteers across the DRC who will help us document lightning incidents and their locations. Since the DRC covers a territory larger than the size of all western Europe combined and because it has the highest lightning density in the world, we plan to highlight incidents as they are reported through this network.

Information is power and we intend to start with acquiring this power of knowing, even if only a rough estimate, how many people are dying, injured, and what property damage occurs to help us inform and plan with all concerned partners. -- At least, this gives us the hope of doing something to save and change lives.