The children of eastern Congo have never known peace. Raised amidst the threat of violence from three decades of armed conflict and what are known as Africa’s World Wars (major conflicts from 1996 to 2003), in January 2025, “fighting in the eastern DRC surged once again … and the M23 have captured the key cities of Goma and Bukavu, leaving devastation in their wake.”
“The fighting has killed about 3,000 people and worsened what was already one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises with about seven million people displaced. M23 is one of about 200 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich eastern DRC near the border with Rwanda. The rebels are supported by about 4,000 soldiers from neighbouring Rwanda, according to UN experts. Despite the DRC’s army and M23 having agreed to work towards a truce this month, fighting continues in the eastern province of South Kivu.” – Al Jazeera, 1 May 2025
A driving force behind the constant conflict is the mineral wealth in Congo that tangibly connects us to the country. If you’re reading this on a smartphone or laptop, you are touching a part of Congo, as the Democratic Republic of Congo holds about 60% of the global coltan reserves, and 70% of the planet’s cobalt production, critical minerals needed for our electronics and move into a green energy future. The M23 is the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control of eastern DRC’s trillions of dollars in mineral wealth that’s critical for much of the world’s technology. (AP) And the people of Congo suffer.
The Congo Peace School is answering the question “is peace possible?” with a resounding YES. The one-of-a-kind campus in South Kivu educates, feeds, and cares for children from preschool age to grade 12. In addition to the Congolese curriculum, the students learn Martin Luther King Jr.’s tenets of nonviolence and peace as taught to our Founding Director Amani Matabaro through the University of Rhode Island. The students are fed daily meals, for many the only food they will eat that day, especially as the ongoing war has ended people’s means for earning income, made food more difficult to source, and malnutrition and starvation is a reality for many in the region. Through Action Kivu’s emergency fund, the school is also providing food for the most in-need families in the area, with $120 buying the provision for three weeks of food for a family of six.
The students watch the world crumble around them in violence and division, but inside the safety of the campus’s walls, they practice peace: with their thoughts, their feelings, their relationships with each other and their teachers. With your partnership, we are giving students the agency to be strong leaders who will refuse violence as a means to solve problems. We are sending out into the world agents and ambassadors of peace.
::How you can help::
Donate to this life-saving work – actionkivu.org/donate
Share stories: Remind friends and colleagues that these kids are who we are fighting for, for these children to grow up safely and be our future leaders, emboldened with the knowledge of and practice in nonviolence, equality, and healing from trauma.
In this HRW podcast, the host's father is one of the Congolese people he speaks to, and it is heartbreaking to hear him reflect on how many people have died from the wars in Congo (over six million) and that "nobody in the world – excuse me the word - gives a damn. Nobody cares."
Thank you for caring.
Further reading / listening:
The U.S. State Department hosted DRC and Rwanda for a peace initiative April 25, after Qatar hosted talks that led to an agreement for a truce, an agreement to halt fighting had reportedly been brokered between Congo (DRC) and the Congo River Alliance, representing several militias including Rwandan-backed M23. Read here. Read the Declaration of Principles from the U.S. State Department here.
The two parties agreed to a May 2 deadline for the peace deal, but now reports state a deal to be made by late May or June, with Reuters reporting that the U.S. is pushing Congo and Rwanda to sign a peace accord at the White House in about two months, accompanied by bilateral mineral deals that would bring billions of dollars of Western investment to the region, President Donald Trump's senior advisor for Africa told Reuters on Thursday.
"When we sign the peace agreement ... the minerals deal with the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) will be signed on that day, and then a similar package, but of a different size, will be signed on that day with Rwanda," Massad Boulos said in an interview in the Qatari capital, Doha.
This podcast from Human Rights Watch that quickly and thoroughly sums up the history of the recent and current wars between Rwanda & Congo (DRC).
Read about conflict minerals here.
VIDEO: Filmed in early May 2025, we're told the students seen playing in the safety of the Congo Peace School campus could hear distant gunfire from the fighting.