Daniel's Dreams & Guided Imagery + Matching Grant Drive through Dec 31

*Matching Grant Drive Through Dec 31st – Thanks to Action Kivu’s board + friends, every dollar you give before Dec 31 2021 will be doubled ‘til we reach $10,500.00 – giving us a year-end goal of $21,000.00.*

It's late November, the time of year in the U.S. when we focus on gratitude and giving thanks, and as I sit writing this outside on a late November day in Southern California, I am grateful for the warm sun, the still chilly air in spots of shade, and the Wi-Fi that reaches from our living room to the small back patio behind our apartment. As I work from home, fully vaccinated and wary as we wait to learn about the new variant of Covid-19 being examined and tracked, I’m acutely aware of how privileged these written words show me to be.

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday – and as you consider your connectedness with our sisters and brothers around the world, never more evident than over the last two years of this pandemic, we ask that you consider giving to Action Kivu to support projects that are daily making a difference in female equality and equity, trauma healing through therapy, education, play, and the arts, peace-informed traditional education, alternative livelihoods / entrepreneurial training, and combating hunger and climate change through regenerative community farming.

We are excited to share that Amani, our visionary leader and Action Kivu’s Founding Director, finally received his first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and will receive his second this week!  The vaccine is not easily accessible to most in eastern Congo, and it’s one more reminder of the inequality we are constantly working to overcome as we partner with communities in Congo.

Life in eastern Congo can be constant trauma – from the trauma of survival in an area of extreme poverty exacerbated by the pandemic, and the trauma of whether the violence of a conflict zone will strike close to home. We are heartbroken to share the news that Pascaline, one of the new teachers at the Congo Peace School’s pre-school program that is hosted and supported by PILA Global, was shot in an armed attack on a matatu (mini-bus) she was riding in as she returned home from picking up medicine for her mother. She survived, but is still in the hospital weeks later being monitored for the gunshot injury to her face and hand.  

In the midst of this, the students at the Congo Peace School must grapple with the reality of violence in their country, in their communities, while studying and putting into practice in their own lives the principles of Martin Luther King Jr.’s practical nonviolence. And we witness their transformation, and what it means for them to have a safe space to be kids – playing, exploring, laughing, dancing.

Part of the school’s curriculum to teach nonviolence and peace and heal trauma includes guided imagery. As the students are encouraged to express themselves, and the teachers and students to view each other as equals, asking questions and fostering curiosity to combat the colonization-era education format of recitation and corporal punishment, they are also guided in healing the trauma of living in a conflict zone.

Amani writes: Guided imagery is one of the mental health interventions that I learned from CMBM (Center for Mind Body Medicine) by Dr Sean Gordon. I have found it to be a great technique in people’s lives, taking a moment to think about the trauma people are going through and imagine a better world, the world we dream about.

Daniel is a Congo Peace School student who drew this image of Congo in violence when he first heard of guided imagery. Daniel describes his drawing as showing the level of trauma the country is confronted with: shootings, people forced to flee, rape, trees being cut down and the environment destroyed. As for the feelings this brings up for Daniel, he said: fear, despair.

Six months later, Daniel drew the New Congo he imagines when he dreams about a better world: A Congo where community members from different tribes live together as a beloved community, a Congo where women celebrate being safe, a Congo with industries transforming the natural resources to benefit everyone, a new Congo with schools, hospitals, where people grow crops to eat and sell. When it comes to industries, Daniel says, why not make electric cars in Congo? I dream of peace!

Daniel’s Dream

(Currently, the sale of minerals mined in Congo that are necessary for electric cars, computers, cell phones, etc. can be used to fund the militias, and do not enrich the lives of the people who mine them. Learn more via the Responsible Minerals Initiative.)

This past weekend, the students gathered for their monthly community clean-up day. They pick up trash and plastic found on the campus and at the community farm, as well as tend to the farm as they do as part of their regular curriculum. Watch a bit of the day here:

Help make the dream of peace a reality in the way we know makes an impact: providing resources in education, peace, healing, food production, and equality training for the people who will be ambassadors for peace. It takes imagination to envision a different way of life, and that is what you are part of when you partner with the Congo Peace School and Action Kivu’s initiatives: providing the glimpse of what can be, and the tools to get us further toward the goal of equality and peace through education.

We are grateful for you! Remember, when you donate* to Action Kivu through Dec 31st, your gift is doubled up to $10,500.00! Help us reach our Matching Grant drive of $21,000 by donating today!

*For U.S. donors, the expanded tax benefits allow for deductions up to $600 available for cash donations by non-itemizers. Action Kivu is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization (EIN/tax ID number: 27-3537799). Your donations are fully tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

Please share this with family and friends to help us grow our beloved community and meet our matching grant goal by Dec 31st to keep the Congo Peace School and community projects thriving!

Back to School! New classrooms & new students at the Congo Peace School - October 2021

The Congo Peace School’s new year began in early October, when we welcomed more teachers and students for two new grades, 6th grade primary and 5th grade secondary, as well as an additional preschool class in the new building, pictured here at the very end of construction! The third preschool class ensures that all the students starting first grade have experienced pedagogy rooted in exploration and curiosity as informed by our preschool partner PILA Global, an experience the first grade teacher had witnessed as a notable difference in the students’ willingness to ask questions and engage with the curriculum.

Reflecting on the start of a new year, the school’s visionary founder Amani Matabaro shared: “Our teaching is for a big goal, teaching against silence, promoting critical thinking and problem solving as opposed to the project by King Léopold II, when in 1883 he said that our children in schools should only trust and believe what they are taught through memorization—we are teaching for nonviolence, peace, freedom, and equality! Our students and teachers are the daughters and sons of liberty in the learning and teaching process.”

The students and staff continue to wear masks indoors, and outside, release some of the fear that the pandemic induces, on top of the region’s systemic poverty and conflict. With physical play and learning, playing games, dancing, and getting their hands dirty with the latest techniques in sustainable, organic farming and respect for the earth and all it provides, the students are living in the knowledge that they are loved, respected, and encouraged!

Watch the video, and trust me, you’ll want to turn the volume up.

And hands-on learning at the farm:

And lots of time to play:

Pictured below is Nancy Baderha, an 8th grader this year. 14 years old, Nancy is very happy to be back to school and reconnect with her friends and teachers. From Amani: We believe all our students are strong, competent, and creative. Nancy is one of our amazing students who loves science and especially math classes. She wants to study and work in bioengineering.

As we near full capacity of students and staff next year (2022 – 2023, when year 5 secondary students will matriculate to their final year 6!) we couldn’t do this without you, our family of generous donors. Thank you for your commitment to greater peace and equality in Congo, and thus, in our world. We are all deeply connected.

As we watch the new building fill with preschool students, a special thank you to Susan Saltz who, in honor of Anita Saltz and the Gary Saltz Foundation, committed to funding the construction of the three new preschool classrooms to host our partner PILA Global’s game-changing preschool program, known as The Nest: Congo. With Harriet Zaretsky’s (Dillon Henry Foundation) additional funding, and Amani and the community’s commitment to build the second floor, the construction was completed, and PILA Global’s Alise and Tom arrived to outfit the rooms, work with the teachers, and the students are flourishing!

As we grow, we must grow our family – please forward this to friends and family who can sign up to give as little as $3 monthly at Patreon or fdonate page.  If you’re able to invest more and would like to make a one-time year end gift, please mail the check to Action Kivu, 4470 W. Sunset Blvd., Suite 160, Los Angeles, CA 90027, or contact me at actionkivu.org to receive bank details for a wire.  $660 dollars covers the cost of tuition, uniforms, supplies, and meals for one student!

May we all learn from these students and take time to play, dance, dig in the dirt to grow good food, and find joy in each day.

In gratitude,

Rebecca Snavely
Executive Director, Action Kivu

Guava Trees & Cornhole: Lessons of Living in Peace with the Earth & One Another

Searching for a quote or interesting fact about the month of August for this update, I looked up the special days of the month: National Potato Day (August 19th, in case you want to add it to your 2022 calendar), Bad Poetry Day (Aug 18th), and what? “World Mosquito Day.”

August 20th is indeed World Mosquito Day, the day that commemorates doctor Sir Ronald Ross's discovery in 1897 that female anopheline mosquitoes transmit malaria between humans.

Oddly enough, this bit of trivia pairs with part of the update from the month of photos and videos and stories our Founding Director Amani Matabaro sent to share with you, our family of supporters, connected to Congo through your giving, your sharing of these stories, your recognition of our interconnectedness.  

Amani shared this video of the guava trees planted at the Congo Peace School, and when you listen, it is a peaceful moment filled with bird-song. “That is part of the reason we plant the trees,” Amani says. “To bring back more birds.” In addition to providing fruit and shade, the trees attract more birds to the area, helping to balance the ecosystem, and to combat the spread of malaria, as the birds eat mosquitos.

Understanding the balance of the natural world and learning how to live nonviolently within it is part of the Congo Peace School’s curriculum.  

It is inspiring to witness the future leaders of our world gaining a deep understanding of how best to live in that world.

Nshobole is a 4th grade elementary school student, starting 5th grade in October. After she finished reading this book, “Our Planet in Danger,” she told Amani: “Cutting down trees and throwing away plastic waste are big threats to our planet.”

The students who attend the Congo Peace School experience many different forms of trauma, from extreme poverty to violence to the fear of the pandemic and the unknown, and at school, they receive support in many different ways: from meals that provide the security of not going hungry, to psychological support from the staff and Amani, who has trained in several different modalities of therapy and healing.

Part of that practice is play, and this past month, the students played what we in the U.S. call cornhole for the first time. Amani says it was wonderful to see them having fun, focusing on the game, laughing and supporting each other.

One of the two preschool classes, supported by our partners at PILA Global, pictured here playing and running on the Congo Peace School’s soccer field.

The new building with three classes on the ground floor to add a third preschool class is almost finished! The roof completed, it is being painted outside and in, and after that dries, the windows and doors will be installed. (Please see our previous update if you missed the news about construction.)

The students continue to learn, inside the classroom and out, because of your partnership. The lessons of stories, of science, of the mathematics of the universe, of growing food, and living in peace with the earth and one another, will change their communities, and ripple into the rest of the world. Thank you for investing in the staff and students at the Congo Peace School!

Photo Credit: Esther Nsapu

Power of a Dream: Congo Peace School students reflect on peace practices

Congo celebrated its Independence Day from Belgium on June 30th, and while there were no parties, as the country is still in the throes of the pandemic without access to vaccines, the students at the Congo Peace School continue safely gathering for school, and to reflect on the practical applications of their peace studies, practice computer skills, and learn from the library of books in addition to their classroom lessons. While they honored hard-won independence, the students and staff at the Congo Peace School continue to focus on their interdependence.

Bulangire, photographed by Esther Nsapu

Reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr.'s tenet that the beloved community is the framework for the future,15-year-old Bulangire, a secondary school student, shared, "People are stronger when they go together. There is a saying in our local language: 'One hand never beats the drum, you need two.' I have understood that unity is power."

Justine, photographed by Esther Nsapu

"I have been reflecting on the power of someone's dream," Justine, 14, shared. "I am happy to have been encouraged to believe in the power and beauty of my dream. And now I am excited to be sharing with all of you and everyone the dream of my life!"

Thank you to YOU for sharing in the dream of the students at the Congo Peace School! It is because of your support that their dreams of education, equality, and a peaceful future are becoming reality.

The school continues to operate during the pandemic with students and staff wearing masks indoors, frequent hand-washing and the staff taking everyone's temperature before entering the campus. Due to an October start in 2020, our school year is extended through September 2021, and we need to continue to grow our beloved community of supporters!

Please forward this email to others to invite them to join the movement for peace and equality through education. The very laptop or phone you use to do so is connected to Congo: a majority of the minerals necessary to make them (tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold) are mined in Congo, but the people see very little of that wealth.

Your gift invests not only in the minds and dreams of the students at the Congo Peace School, but in their bodies as well; the school meals are sometimes the only food the students eat all week. The peace curriculum includes teaching the students sustainable farming, caring for the earth while growing healthy food to feed the community!

Photo credit: Esther Nsapu

Photo credit: Esther Nsapu

A Practical Way to Teach Patience: April at the Congo Peace School [2021]

From preparing for exams to tending onion nurseries, the students at the Congo Peace School learned hands-on about the value of patience, care, and hope this past month. We heard from three of them for our April update! 

Arsene, April 2021

"I am always happy to be here at the Congo Peace School, my home, my new hope, my beloved community. This past month I focused on preparing for my exams, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to have this lovely space to get an education. Working on the farm preparing the nurseries for red onions was great this month, it’s amazing to learn to put seeds in the soil and watch them become plants, grow and become food or money. I learned patience and courage and the care it requires to make sure they grow.” – Arsene, 4th grade secondary

Arsene, 2015

Shortly after Cate Haight and I founded Action Kivu in the U.S. in 2010, we traveled together to Congo, and Arsene was one of the children we met, over a decade ago. His father murdered near a gold mine, Arsene was brought into Action Kivu’s family through Amani’s loving network of support for education assistance and job training. That initial welcoming embrace planted the seeds for Arsene to be part of the first cohort of the Congo Peace School.
 

I met up with Arsene again in July 2018, when I visited as the Congo Peace School was under construction, and again in September 2018, after Arsene had newly begun his education there. Over the course of those months, I asked him twice about his definition of nonviolence, a core principle of the school.

Before Arsene began classes at the Congo Peace School, Arsene replied: “I’ve only ever heard of violence, not nonviolence. Our teachers tell us about what is happening in the world, and it is all related to violence. I hear this school will be a blessing. Maybe I will graduate and become president.”

Arsene, July 2018

From September, 2018: Now a student at the Congo Peace School, Arsene defines nonviolence as "a way leading to peace, love, and equality." His understanding of peace has already deepened: "I think nonviolence is needed everywhere, with my classmates and at home with my mom and siblings. At this school, we have people who care deeply about us, they give us food, school uniforms, pens. The teachers do not beat us, they do not shout at us, the school principal and teachers encourage us to read books. We feel very safe in this school."

It’s fitting that regenerative, sustainable farming is a foundation that feeds into the Congo Peace School and community. Your partnership in giving is water that creates the fertile soil for children like Arsene to flourish!

Francine, April 2021

When Francine's father died, her family was unable to afford to send her to school, and she was forced to drop out. Two years later, she was able to resume her education thanks to our Congo Peace School supporters, and at 18, she is now in 4th grade of secondary school. When Amani asked what she had learned during the month of April, first Francine laughed and laughed, then paused and smiled: “This month of April I spent much of my time reading my notes to prepare for exams, they are going on and I am hoping for the best. I also enjoyed time on the farm working on different activities. I most liked transplanting the onions from the nurseries to the farm to start preparing them for growth. All it requires is attention and care on a constant basis. I learned care and patience!”

Musezanciko, April 2021

“The month of April we focused on two things: preparing for our semester exams and working on the farm to connect with our nature and soil," Musezanciko, an 18 year old student in 4th grade secondary. "This is our second week of the exams and they are going well, while the crops at the school farm we worked on are also growing well. When you learn to plant something, you need to be patient and hopeful. Learning to grow plants as we are doing at the Congo Peace School connects us with the soil and what we eat and this means a lot for me, to understand that we have the power to grow healthy crops using the animal manure in the compost.“

Thank you for your commitment to the students, staff, and community of the Congo Peace School!

Please join us in a fun, entertaining game night to benefit the school on Saturday, May 15th. Details & RSVP here, and please invite friends and family!

March at the Congo Peace School: Unbroken Web of Life

“Helped are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity.” ― Alice Walker (excerpt from The Gospel According to Shug)

This unbroken web of life reveals itself as we connect with the communities in Congo. We needed all of March's 31 days for everything that transpired at the Congo Peace School!

• UNDER CONSTRUCTION

We’re excited to share the news that we are adding another building to the campus to house the pre-school classes, including a new class, making three classes of young children who will be provided the space and encouragement to foster play and curiosity.

Thanks to our CPS partner Dillon Henry Foundation’s Harriet Zaretsky for a generous gift, and her relationship with Susan Saltz, Anita Saltz and the Gary Saltz Foundation, we were granted the funding to build the three-classroom building, with an additional space for the school counselor to meet with students privately. Our pre-school partner PILA Global has committed to outfitting the third classroom and raising the funds for the teachers in addition to the current two classes!

Previously, with two pre-school classes of age 4/5 and 5/6 year olds, those 22 older students would graduate into the first grade, joined by 18 students who had not been in the program our partner PILA Global calls The Nest (the CPS Nests being a part of their worldwide education outreach).

The primary school’s first grade teacher reported that there is a significant difference in the students who experienced pre-school: greater capacity for curiosity, asking questions with more confidence than their peers.

Thus, moving forward, with one 4/5 year old class, and two 5/6 year old classes, the first grade class will consist of students who have all benefited from this unique pre-school program.

(Photo courtesy PILAGLOBAL.ORG)

• BOOKS

Books for Congo, the non-profit that launched the Congo Peace School and Community Library, donated 1900 more books, expanding the library to over 3,000 that surround the computer lab tables.

The students plan to start a book club of sorts, a monthly Club of Readers who come together to share what they read, whether a novel or scientific study, and what they learned from it. We look forward to sharing some of those reviews with all of you.

Amani shared that watching the students unload and explore the books was a healing day for him. He and the staff are looking to see how reading contributes to empathy, one of the pillars of the Congo Peace School.

• PLAY

Also hanging in the auditorium are checkerboards for the students to play on during breaks and after school.

• FARM

The CPS Community Farm welcomed a new member, a beautiful pregnant cow.  As we’ve noted in previous posts, the Community Farm provides both an educational space and professional platform for women and students to learn and put into practice organic, aquaponic techniques and animal husbandry, and the cows, along with providing milk for the malnourished students, also provide poop for the compost.

• WOMEN MAKING HISTORY MONTH

In March, we celebrated Women's History Month, but in Congo, we celebrate women making history every day. Action Kivu has worked with Nurse Jeanine over the years, through hiring her for the HIV/AIDS testing and education that she continues to do, to staffing her as the CPS nurse to care for the students (seen here in her office at the school).

For women’s history month, Nurse Jeanine shared, “The Congo peace school is a model to teach about equality between men and women. We need to focus on this new generation giving education to all the children and Congo peace school is preaching by example: 52% girls and 48% boys.”

• HUMANITARIAN

And last but certainly not least, we celebrate that Amani Matabaro, our Founding Director and the visionary behind the Congo Peace School, was selected as one of 35 participants (from 300 applicants) to take the National NGO Program on Humanitarian Leadership. From the site: “Concern Worldwide, in consortium with International Medical Corps (IMC) and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) and with technical support from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health developed the National NGO Program on Humanitarian Leadership (NNPHL). The program, funded by the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and launched in 2016, offers dynamic and relevant training opportunities that help learners build their skills, knowledge, and confidence to take on leadership responsibilities in humanitarian organizations in order to improve the delivery of services to those in need of humanitarian assistance.”

Amani shares that this training built upon his 2010 HELP (Health Emergencies in Large Populations) training from Johns Hopkins University, and was an incredible month of reading and connecting with the trainers and other participants for intensive learning and sharing. The only Congolese participant, Amani says some of the key takeaways for him, that he will now use in leadership training in the community and with CPS staff:

The difference between authority and leadership:
Authority gives direction - Go do it.
Leadership points to a problem and says - Let’s do it.

Amani looks forward to continuing to mobilize people, to lead with a trauma lens, and practice “the more you observe, the better you understand.” It fits with his training and practice from the University of Rhode Island’s Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, to always be empathetic, nonjudgmental.

It is education for life, healing, and resilience, said Amani. He shared, “I like the sentence, ‘When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.’”

The Democratic Republic of Congo is often looked at as beyond hope – a place of violence against women, of warring militias. While (as in many places) there are many deep-rooted problems that stem from violence, from colonization to exploitation, Congo is a country of visionaries, of artists, of peace-builders, of hope.

Through your contribution in support of education rooted in peace and equality, you are changing the way the world looks at Congo.

Thank you for your giving and connection to the people of Congo, and please share these stories that inspire you that we are in an unbroken web of life.

The impact of one word: February update from the Congo Peace School (and farm)

We're excited to share an update from February at the Congo Peace School. This month, we focused on what the students have learned about one of the core tenets of the school's philosophy.

“Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things... But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.” ― Helen Keller, Optimism

At the Congo Peace School, an 8-letter word fell into the hands, the minds, the lives of the students, staff, and teachers. A word that, based on what some of the students share with us below, caused their hearts to open to new ways of living. That word? EQUALITY.

Equality is the basis of Amani Matabaro's vision for his community-led work in Congo. It is the basis in ensuring the same number of girls (or more) attend the school as do boys. It is the foundation in training the teachers and staff that the Congo Peace School is different from other schools in the region: teachers engage with their students as equals; there is no corporal punishment, as there is in other schools. Students engage with each other as equals, sharing ideas, doing games and practices to physically learn what it is to stand eye to eye, to walk in their classmates' shoes.

And as we learned from these students this February, the idea of equality is taking hold, and changing not only their own lives, but their families and communities. As Busime summed it up: Equality means peace!

Busime Mushiayuma is 16 years old and a 4th grade secondary school student. Asked about the word, she responded: "Equality is something I had never been told before I came to the Congo Peace School. It’s here where I heard for the first time that all human beings are equal and free. It always makes me feel happy to be in the same school where we, the girls and boys, are equal. I wish all the community was educated this way. Equality for me means no discrimination between boys and girls, men and women. If the leaders of our country understand and apply equality, things will be alright! Equality means peace!"

Mushagalusa Mushamuka: "I am 14 years old, and I am a second grade student in secondary school. The Congo Peace School was the first place I heard about the importance of the word equality, it's just the only way to make everyone's rights respected. Equality means people are equal, that's as important as the Gospel they preach every Sunday."

Mutalegwa Kasesa: "I am 18 years old and I am a third grade student in secondary level. Being 18 and only in third grade secondary means I was the victim of discrimination: I should be graduating from secondary school by now, but for no other reason than me being a girl, I was not given the same chance as my brothers. Equality must be applied in all aspects of our lives."

"Equality is an important word for me, it's living by respecting the other, it's always taking the time to put yourself in the place of the other. And if everyone lives by practicing equality, the world will be peaceful. I like equality at school, at home, and in the community but many people still need to understand." -Ashuza Buhendwa, 16 years old, 3rd grade of secondary school.

Nkombera Cigarhilirwa is in 2nd grade of secondary school. "Equality is not about the age, size or height, it's about looking at one another the same way you'd want people to look at you. Equality for me also means the respect of the rights of others. We need to live equality here at school, at home and in our everyday life. Many things need to change in our society before we confirm equality has been put into practice. I have come to understand and know that what men do, women can do as well. Discrimination has to stop and that's equality."

We also welcomed a new calf to the organic Community Farm this February! Pictured here nursing from his mama, as he grows, grazing in the field and eating grass, he plays an important part in the community farm. (Hint: cow poop!)

The Community Farm provides both an educational space and professional platform for women and students to learn and put into practice organic, aquaponic techniques and animal husbandry.

Compost & Regeneration: With cows, pigs, goats, rabbits, and three fish ponds, Action Kivu's visionary leader Amani and agronomist Mukengere utilize some of the latest techniques in aquaponics, composting the waste from the animals to feed the fish.

Aquaponics: The nutrient rich water from the tilapia ponds is used to water the crops.

Harvest & Sustainability: At harvest, the crops feed the women's families, are sold at the market for income, and help the Congo Peace School provide organic, healthy meals to the students there.

*The students and staff continue to wear masks, wash hands, and follow all the protocols to avoid transmission of the Coronavirus - the Mumosho region continues to stay outbreak free, and they continue to be vigilant.*

Thank you for your commitment to this transformational work. We are all connected, and what lifts up and provides greater equality and justice for the people of Congo creates a more equal, just world for us all.

Invest in greater equality here!

Recyc Trike + Rice Harvest + Students Share: Nonviolence and Caring for the Earth

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”  ― Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House

As I spoke with Amani this week to learn the latest that was happening in his corner of Congo, our discussion about the regenerative, sustainable cycle of every project he oversees led to him sharing how the Congo Peace School students are understanding their place in the greater web of humanity, and how their actions matter, and how we are all connected.

"The earth is everything," Nancy Baderha responded when asked what she has learned at the Congo Peace School about caring for the planet. "Everything we eat comes from there. There is so much erosion washing homes out in Bukavu, in Uvira, every time it rains because of plastic waste everywhere. We must get rid of plastic waste and plant trees, and that will bring the birds and bees back. If our earth is healthy, we will be healthy too, as well as the people around the world." –Nancy Baderha, 13 years old, 7th grade Peace Ambassador

"I am very happy to be learning that no matter where I am, I need to protect the planet's environment. I never knew that planting trees brings back the birds. Before coming to the Congo Peace School, I never knew how dangerous plastic waste is, I am determined not to litter my school and community with plastic waste." –Destin Bahati, 14 years old, 7th grade Peace Ambassador

"If nothing is done in Congo, people in Australia, people in India are going to be affected. And our children are understanding this. We are all in this, and it has to be a struggle, a global struggle." This minute-long video is a glimpse of the inspiration and education one receives when sharing time with Amani. 

Amani also shared that ABFEC was selected to receive a grant from FHI 360, providing this recycle tricycle and other tools for a youth-led recycling program. Led by Action Kivu’s organic agronomist, Mukengere, this shows just one more way that the people and projects that you support through your gifts are the leaders of their community!

We are also excited to share that the rice harvest took place this month. You might recall that planting rice was the community’s answer to the problem of overly wet land at the farm. Part of the rice harvest will supplement the Congo Peace School meal plan, helping to make it more sustainable and local! Part of the harvest goes to reinvest in the agriculture as well as pay the workers.

Amani shared these photos and the report: “Nothing is lost: we grow rice to feed the students after husking it with a mill, the rice bran is used to feed the pigs and the grass to feed the cows. You can see a very high sense of community involvement.”

As we continue to explore and know the world and what is good for it, and thus for us, we recognize our deep connection to it and to each other. Without your commitment and support, we couldn't be connected in such a way to the people of Congo and students at the Congo Peace School, young Peace Ambassadors who are now educating their families and communities, creating a growing circle of people practicing peace, nonviolence, and equality.

We are grateful for our major gifts donors, our Congo Peace School partner the Dillon Henry Foundation, our pre school Nest partner PILA, and our monthly sustaining donors! None of this would be possible without you - you are making a lasting difference in the world.

If you’re inspired to join this movement and commit to a monthly gift, please consider $60 / month - this covers the cost of one student attending the Congo Peace School for one year, including school uniforms, daily meals, staff trained in a unique nonviolence curriculum and approach, and access to a school library and computer lab as well as agricultural training. If you can’t commit to $60 / month or a one-time $700 gift, start a Peace School Pod with other friends! Four people giving $15 / month or six people donating $10 / month and your pod has sent a student to this special school, and invested in a brighter future for us all! Sign up here.

Thank you for being a part of this journey for greater peace and equality through education with us!

Rebecca Snavely
Executive Director, Action Kivu

Giving Tuesday: Photos to post, gratitude to give

This Giving Tuesday, we're focusing our attention on gratitude and growth! We are grateful for you, our Action Kivu family across the globe, and for our partner Pour Les Femmes, Robin Wright's and Karen Fowler's fashion brand that focuses people's attention on our connection to Congo.

Please join Pour Les Femmes and Action Kivu this Giving Tuesday (Dec 1), as we invite you to:

1. Donate $5 or more ($15 = 1 Congo Peace School uniform, and provides work for Action Kivu's Sewing Workshop alumni) actionkivu.org

2. Email or post on social media a list of 5 things you are grateful for

3. Tag 5 other people to do the same!

With your action in posting and sharing on Giving Tuesday, we will grow our family on this day, as newcomers learn how their gifts to Action Kivu invest in education and sustainable peace through the power of the people of Congo.

Please share these photos, and post along with your video or list of what you're grateful for on Giving Tuesday! Tag @actionkivu and @pourlesfemmesofficial in social media posts.

If you're looking to make your year-end donation, please consider a $60 / month sustaining gift or $700 one-time donation to cover the costs of one student attending the Congo Peace School, with supplies, meals, an education rooted in the principles of nonviolence, access to a library of books, a computer lab, agricultural training, as well as a school nurse and counselor.

Gratitude, Peace School, and Preschool in Congo

This month in the U.S. with the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, many of us focus our attention on gratitude. In a tumultuous year with so much uncertainty and grief, gratitude can seem difficult, but is often the very thing to help us heal and process.

In this update from the Congo Peace School, we’re holding gratitude for you, our partners in this exciting adventure, the teachers at the preschool, and the Pedagogical Institute of Los Angeles (PILA), our partner who created and support The Nest at the Congo Peace School, the two preschool classes and classrooms that better prepare students to enter first grade. There are very few preschool classes in eastern Congo, and none that are stocked with the tools, experiences, and play items that the PILA team outfitted these classrooms with when they traveled to Congo in May of 2019. The Nest classrooms also provide three teachers per class, so the 22 and 26 children in each classroom receive plenty of attention.

Photo Credit: PILA, 2019

As we noted in the last update, children model the behavior they see in adults, so it is critical that the teachers and staff at the Congo Peace School have been well-trained in and ingested the principles of peace and nonviolence, so that they are a guiding example for the students.

Meet Barhalibirhu Mutongo Theresite, whose story offers the hope of perseverance and dedication.

A local to Mumosho (home of the Congo Peace School), Barhalibirhu moved away in secondary school, to live with her cousin who was able to pay her school fees. One year before she was to graduate, however, Barhalibirhu, having moved to Bukavu, ran out of money for school, and married instead of graduating.

"After several years of participation in women’s empowerment sessions, I decided to go back to school to complete my secondary school education," Barhalibirhu says. "It was not easy but I had the encouragement of my husband and my children. Since childhood I always felt the passion to work with children. In addition, I did not want to remain a parasite, economically speaking. I wanted to get a job, but fulfilling my dream was not an easy task. I am married and the mother of 11 children, 5 daughters and 6 sons, and I am blessed to be the grandmother of several grandchildren.

"I felt I had a call to work with children, I love children and I feel blessed to be a preschool teacher at the CongoPeace School. I feel I am a mother for our 22 beautiful amazing children we have.

"From teaching and facilitating the learning process for children since September of 2019, I’ve learned that children are amazing creators when you look at what they are accomplishing at the end of every day. I have understood that every child can succeed if they’re encouraged, loved, and given a chance. And from the trainings I learned so much and many things at a time: that children should not be asked to memorize theories and facts but let them grow their spirit of curiosity, take initiative. They solve problems, ask questions, tell stories, explain what they have built. They build extraordinary things like railway stations, houses, fences on their own, tell intelligent and wildly imaginative stories. Children have high levels of creative storytelling.

“There have been tremendous changes at different levels in the children’s everyday lives. Their sense of imagination, freedom, creativity, curiosity, is going up and up every single day. Children are taking leadership, they are no longer shy!"

Photo Credit: PILA, 2019

In other news, a baby girl calf was born at the Congo Peace School farm! Learn how the animals are a part of the sustainable, organic teaching farm at the Action Kivu site.

Your investment in the Congo Peace School has a ripple effect into the community: the student uniforms and cloth masks are made by women who were trained in Action Kivu’s Entrepreneurial Program, giving work to those who will then invest in the future of their children and the greater community!

COVID-19 update, from our visionary leader and partner Amani Matabaro: "The Congo Peace School (CPS) fully reopened on the 12th of October. It has been a great joy for the student population and the entire CPS beloved community. The COVID-19 protocol in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and especially in school settings is, theoretically, that everybody must wear a mask, have their temperatures taken before entering school, wash their hands with soap or chlorinated water, and if there is a suspicious case with high temperature or showing other COVID-19 symptoms, that student or staff member should be isolated in a separate room until medical staff determines what the issue is. Unlike so many schools in Congo, there is running water at the Congo Peace School and students are able to wash their hands. We have two thermo flashes to take temperatures every single school day morning."

It’s a process to adapt to this new world. As you and I might forget our masks when we go out to walk the dog and have to hurry home or create a makeshift one from a scarf, so do some of the students forget their masks at home, and Action Kivu is wiring further funding to purchase more cloth masks that the school can keep on hand for those who forget. Amani reports that after the first two weeks, it is becoming a habit to pack their masks along with school books!

Amani shares that Mabikane Lydie, the school principal for the elementary school, reports that sometimes younger children forget to wash their hands and someone needs to be careful to make sure they really do every time they arrive at the school and after using the bathroom. There is need of constant follow up with the kids to make sure they keep using their masks. At the secondary school level, students are highly aware of the danger of the pandemic and they wear their masks, wash their hands and wait in line until their temperatures are taken at the gate every morning. The CPS staff and teachers are all happy to report that our school remains a COVID-19 free space from the reopening day up to now! Our school nurse has been very careful in following how the situation is unfolding, and is in close contact with a local health clinic in case anything happens.

The school has significantly reduced the number of attendees in the cafeteria and students need to wait to take their meals in small numbers. Priority is given to preschool students, then the elementary students, and lastly the secondary school students. The pandemic is new and dangerous and everyone is being careful in changing behavior to protect themselves and others.

Speaking to different students today, Amani shares upon returning from the school, they report that the pandemic has changed and affected how they live daily: no more handshaking, no hugs, not getting close to one another, not hanging in groups, this is very bad.

We all look forward to getting through this, together. Thank you for your amazing partnership in this!

If you want to join the movement for peace and equality through education, please set up a recurring donation! $60 per month pays for one student to attend the Congo Peace School for one year, complete with books, uniforms, masks, meals, access to a counselor and a nurse, a computer lab and a library! If you can afford $10 / month, find 5 other friends to give at the $10 / month level to create a CPS pod! Sign up at ActionKivu.org/donate or Patreon.com/congopeaceschool.