Watch: Robin Wright in Conversation with Amani Matabaro of Action Kivu

We spent an inspiring half hour online with Robin Wright and Action Kivu’s Founding Director Amani Matabaro discussing where he began and what we've seen change in 10 years since Action Kivu started partnering with Amani and his organization and amazing communities in Congo.

How Amani views nonviolence in every form is critical to understanding how we can work together to repair the world.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of Action Kivu's family the last ten years - your partnership is making an important, lasting impact.

Please watch the video, and then take action!

1. Follow Action Kivu on Instagram, Facebook, and / or Twitter. (@actionkivu)

2. Re-post a photo from our account sharing what you heard today that enlightened or inspired you, and ask others to follow and donate!

3. Speaking of donating – every dollar truly makes a difference. As we look to the future of the Congo Peace School in particular, we need more and more partners to ensure its success as it grows to full capacity. If you can commit today to $700 / year to Action Kivu for one student to attend with daily meals, supplies, and teachers, staff, a school counselur and nurse who are committed to education rooted in equality, respect, peace, and nonviolence. That’s less than $2 / day – your book club / classroom / friend circle could do this together!
   
   Head over to actionkivu.org to donate, or set up a sustaining monthly donation for $60 / month and note it is for the Congo Peace School.

Thank you for your generosity of time, efforts, and funds. We are grateful.

Constructing the Present: June in Congo Update from Action Kivu

“Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.” ― Alice Walker

As we celebrate 10 years of Action for Action Kivu's 10th anniversary this Saturday with Robin Wright live in conversation with our visionary leader Amani Matabaro, we are grateful for the present you all have been constructing with us in partnership with the people of Eastern Congo. (If you haven't already registered, do so here, and invite your friends. It will be an inspiring half hour.)

Hearing the students at the Congo Peace School share their dreams for a new Congo, one that is safe and rooted in equality, witnessing them flourish as they learn new computer skills and crack open new worlds within library books, watching them continue to learn and be fed, mentally, emotionally, and physically - even in the midst of a pandemic, the present we're all constructing looks like the future the children are dreaming. Elysee is 16 years old, in the 3rd grade of secondary school at the Congo Peace School.

"In June, I've needed to combine many things almost every day," she says, "learning some computer skills during our half day school sessions in small groups [limited to 20] because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some days I go to the Congo Peace School and community library and read a book. When I am not at school, I have to go and help my mom with farm work, I have no excuse. I have to help my mom because our father abandoned my mom for no other reason than giving birth to only girls.

"I want people outside Congo to know that my dream is big, and it is about a new Congo, stable and well-governed, safe and with no rape against women. May Congo become a country where equality between men and women is a reality. I am very excited by knowing and discovering day by day that it’s possible to combine agriculture and animal husbandry. The results at Congo Peace School are spectacular - when I look at the size of the squash leaves that are being grown on our school farm, it is so amazing and incredible. I'm also interested in the computer skills lessons, that make our school unique in the area. By the end of June, I felt very stressed and frustrated because of the Covid-19 pandemic cases reported in our health zone and the increase in the numbers of cases around the world is very saddening – I am concerned and worried. I am very tired of the pandemic, I need to go back to school, I miss my school's beloved community."

(Read our earlier updates from May and April to learn how Action Kivu has pivoted in response to the current Covid-19 pandemic. )

Iragi is 13 years old, and in the 2nd Grade of secondary school at the Congo Peace School.

He shares: "June has been a very exciting month for me on one hand because it was my small group's turn at school to learn computer skills, and it was the first time I saw and touched a computer! I am very excited and curious to learn as much as I can. On the other hand my mom was sick but now she’s doing well. The pandemic should end, I wish there was a medicine to cure the Covid-19 pandemic. I have no idea what we would become without the Congo Peace School feeding and educating us. I want people outside Congo to know that our school is our family. I hate hearing in the news that the Covid-19 pandemic cases are increasing everyday in Congo and other countries."

The pandemic affects every student, and comes up in conversation often. Many of the families in the community are struggling to eat each day, and the Congo Peace School continues to provide meals for the most at-risk students, as well as continues to expand the community farm at the school, teaching students how to create a sustainable food source through organic farming and animal husbandry.

In exciting news, a member of the local Rotary Club visited the school, and impressed by the curriculum rooted in peace and nonviolence, as well as the regenerative model where every project feeds into the next (the animal manure used as compost to help grow the vegetables that leave Elysee in awe), donated a dairy cow to the school farm! When she arrives we'll share photos.

Volunteers are building a barn to shelter the cow, which Amani reports, fits into the regeneration cycle of everything we are doing: its manure will contribute to the organic fertilizer wing through compost, the cow will produce milk to help with nutrition of children who join our school's beloved community with severe malnutrition. The Congo Peace School is also envisioning to sell its milk for income to support the sustainability of the school. Another goal is to teach the students how the cow is part of who and what we are. As part of Amani's local nonprofit ABFEC, he has hired a vet to take care of the cow medically whenever needed, while our local team will have tours to feed the cow with the grasses of the type of tripsacum which is advised for a balanced diet for cows. We have been planting different varieties of grasses to feed the cow, planted on the edges of the school's soccer field, not only to feed the cow but also to protect the field against erosion.

Updates from the Community Farm: The rice fields are doing well, a future-thinking response to water-logged land.

We also heard from Mastaki Francine this month, a graduate from our Sewing Workshop three years ago. Her business, like so many, is affected by the pandemic as many community members have no income at the moment.

"I used to get customers almost every day and my sewing workshop was very busy. At the moment I have no customers , I have even decided to relocate my sewing workshop from a rented house to my parents' house. I am praying to see the pandemic end so I resume my business."

As we've noted in the previous months' updates, we were only able to so quickly pivot to a pandemic response because of the years of your investing in Action Kivu's work, establishing the foundations and physical means to support the community. Amani continues to use his training in Kingian peace & nonviolence both with the students and the community. This week, he hosted a training inside the large and well-ventilated auditorium, at which he and another local leader in human rights conducted a two day training, including a call to ask questions of Amani's original teacher, Professor Paul Bueno de Mesquita - who taught Amani at the University of Rhode Island's International Nonviolence Summer Institute.

In the midst of so much pain and uncertainty, Amani continues to create space for learning, for healing, and for a more healthy and just future for his community, and by extension, for us all.

Please remember to register for our Saturday call to hear from Amani directly - you'll receive the link on Friday!

Thank you for the generosity of your partnership that continues to create a more just world that will benefit us all, as we are “tied in a single garment of destiny.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

May 2020: Places of Peace in the Midst of the Pandemic

We could not post an update from the month of May in Congo without acknowledging the global uprising against racism we are engaged in.

From Amani Matabaro, our North Star and Founding Director of Action Kivu:

Real hope is seen in action, and we’re grateful to share good news: we are celebrating 10 Years of Action this July 11th, Action Kivu’s 10th Anniversary! Please register today for a Zoom celebration with a Q&A between Amani and actor / activist Robin Wright.

As the Coronavirus pandemic continues its spread throughout Congo, it is particularly problematic in eastern Congo where our projects are, due to the lack of infrastructure. Amani reports that testing is almost non-existent, as samples have to travel to Kinshasa, DRC’s capital, 2000 kilometers from Bukavu, South Kivu.

In what feels like an ever-frightening world, the Congo Peace School is a beacon of light and hope, thanks to your partnership and investment. The students continue to learn in small groups, honoring social distancing, wearing masks, and practicing prevention in handwashing before entering the school’s auditorium that houses the computer lab and library, and to eat meals in the cafeteria. For many students, this is the only food they will get as the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the local economy.

You may have read the U.N. report today that “about 1,300 civilians have been killed in separate conflicts involving armed groups and government forces in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over the past eight months, with the violence forcing more than half a million people from their homes, the United Nations has said.”

This violence has not affected the region around the Congo Peace School which remains peaceful, but it cannot help but affect every person at the level of fear for basic safety and human rights. This, on top of everything else, is why your partnership with the people of eastern Congo means so much, and provides real pathways in peace-based education, provision of food, and a group of leaders trained in nonviolence and trauma-informed community building.

In these students’ stories, we see how the fear of the uncertainty of the pandemic and critical concern around malnutrition and violence lives side by side with hope because of the school’s programs: 

“This pandemic is a devil and an enemy of everyone,” Aminata shared. “It has completely changed my everyday life, schedules and everything. Our school no longer opens early in the morning at 7:30. We have reading sessions and computer skills in small groups since we cannot gather in groups of more than 20 people. I am missing my school and community lifestyle so much, I wish the school could be re-opened completely. I don’t want to be selfish, I want the rest of my school mates to also access computer skills, share our meals with everyone like the time before the pandemic.

“My auntie and grandmother, with whom I live because I am an orphan, cannot run their small business as they used to do before the pandemic, their little trade was the only source of income we were relying on to get food and clothing in addition to what we get from the Congo Peace School. Everything has completely changed, no more money for my aunt to do her business of selling cooking oil because when the borders between Rwanda and DRC were closed because of the pandemic, she spent her capital of $50 on our basic needs as she could not continue crossing the closed borders. 

“We go to the Congo Peace School for reading, to learn computer skills, and to get a meal. I am badly missing my life before the pandemic. The only new hope I have is because of the education I am getting from the Congo Peace School, I hope my life changes one day." -Aminata

"Life for me during the pandemic is a total nightmare. I never imagined something like this would happen to the world. I am so very afraid when I hear the damages and deaths this pandemic is causing in the world. Our country already had so many other problems and this pandemic comes to paralyze everything. Hunger has become a big issue because of this pandemic. Everything has closed: no church, no school, but I am so lucky to be a student at the Congo Peace School with a unique vision. As you can see, we are learning computer skills in small groups, we have access to books in our school library, we have access to food, which is not the case, I imagine, for other schools in the country.

“Learning computer skills had been a dream which became reality for me and my schoolmates. It means so much and it is something new in my life, I never imagined I would be so lucky to access, to touch a computer in my life but the Congo Peace School makes it a reality for me. We are learning how a computer works, its hard parts and its soft system. Now I know the functions of the keys, I can start a computer, create a file, type a document, and file it. Accessing a computer makes me feel very proud of myself and my school. I will use computer skills as a tool of work and when we have access to internet at school, I will send emails to people." -Samuel

In our work for food security for the students and the community, we have great news to share! Amani reports that “we had an ongoing problem of excess water on part of the Community Farm. Our approach is that every problem has a regenerative, local solution.”

Thus – they planted rice fields! (In the distance of the second photo posted here, you can see the pig sty, that is part of the cycle of regenerative farming through composting at the Community Farm.)

 It is impossible to state how meaningful and life-changing your contribution to this movement of peace and equality through education is.
We truly are in this together.

April 2020: Action Kivu's work in response to the pandemic

"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  

So much has changed in such a short time. Have you witnessed it? There is a sense of an awakening, in ourselves and our communities, to the underlying connectedness between all of us, and between humanity and the earth that Wendell Berry references in much of his writing, to the "inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny," as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. describes it.  

Today we continue to connect with the people of Congo, as we make an effort to know the world, in all its corners and quirks and groanings and beauty. Much like our mandates here in the U.S. and around the globe, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s government has issued safer-at-home mandates, which closed schools in March, restricting public gatherings to no more than 20 people at a time. 

“The Congo Peace School may be temporarily closed, but the mission and vision behind the school cannot be shut down.”

– Amani Matabaro

Amani and the staff have made immediate changes in operations to meet the crisis, making the most of the resources at hand, utilizing the infrastructure that is in place because of years of your support and investment as the foundation for the life-saving work that needs to be done.

We may be a small organization, but we are vigorous and energized under Amani’s leadership. Amani’s action plan in education and prevention are in line to what UNICEF lists as their approach to combat the spread of Covid-19.

UNICEF response strategy and interventions focuses on the following axes:

1.     Risk communication & community engagement (RCCE);
2.     Improving WASH and Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) measures in health facilities and in the community;
3.     Provision of supplies, medical equipment for case management;
4.     Psychosocial support and continuous access to basic social services;
5.     Social protection interventions to mitigate the socio-economic impact in households and Social sciences analysis.

Amani is already leading the way with his team. The Congo Peace School has become a hub of health and education, not just to feed the most at-risk students with meals served to 20 students at a time, but as a resource center for hand-washing stations made possible by an emergency grant from our partners at Jewish World Watch, as well as the ability to distribute the educational information on the how-to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Thanks to your ongoing support, we continue to invest in the staff of the Congo Peace School, who are now a team of health educators, going out into the community to teach our neighbors preventative actions to take, and are feeding the students who are most at risk of starvation with a meal made from purchased beans and rice as well as the vegetables we are growing on the organic farm at the school. (Pictured below is one enormous head of organic cabbage!) 

It means so much to have this infrastructure in place that made it possible for an immediate pivot to respond swiftly with resources to this public health crisis, and we could not have done it without you.  

Another foundation is the decade of sewing training from your long-term support for Action Kivu that has prepared our community to make masks! The women who graduated the Sewing Workshop are now making the masks you see them wearing here, safely distanced in the Sewing Co-Op in the Community Center as well as in the Congo Peace School auditorium.

The masks are critical, and they are not easily accessible in the region. As Amani reports, he is more concerned about people dying from hunger than from Covid-19 at the moment. The majority of the region’s population are living in poverty, and people must leave their homes each day to find food for that day, to stay alive.

As you'll see in the photo and video below, face masks are a critical component of precaution that is being implemented as the masks are being made. With malnutrition being an immediate risk, the staff was serving the student meals as you see here, but be assured that they are taking every precaution with hand-washing and preparation, and the masks are now being distributed.

More great news as we work today for a better future: we were able to purchase 20 laptops for the Congo Peace School, thanks in part to individual donors and Chocolate for Congo, an annual fundraiser in Portland, Oregon hosted by Never Again Coalition! In groups of 20, the students, seated at a distance from each other, are learning the basics of word processing, the first time they’ve worked on a computer. They too will receive masks to ensure the greatest possible prevention.

The city power in Mumosho is patchy at best, running at odd hours with no guarantees, more usually off than on, so to best run these laptops, and to provide greater security for the campus at night, we've been working to find funding for solar power for the campus. As of the end of April, we are in discussion again with an organization, working on a grant for phasing in the necessary solar power, starting with the computer lab and the two boarding houses, boarding houses that once fully outfitted, will provide sustainable income for the school.  

It's impossible to express the overwhelming gratitude we have for all you've done in building up this foundation in Congo, that it can be used to truly serve the students and community in a time of crisis, while we continue to look forward to when the pandemic is over, and we resume classroom teaching, having created an even greater trust in community-building through showing care, love, and hope in a time of need.

We hope you are well and safe in this difficult time. Take good care of yourself as you are caring for others.

Special update: Coronavirus in Congo

It took Coronavirus a little longer to reach DRC, but as I write this, our partner Amani reports that 30 cases have been confirmed in Congo, with two deaths. Two new cases were reported today in the Katanga region in Lubumbashi in South Kivu. The direct impact of this is that Amani had to abruptly close the Congo Peace School on Friday. He shared that many students cried at the announcement, as the school acts not only as a second home where they practice loving nonviolence in classrooms and in play, but is also where they eat their only meal. Thankfully, we will continue to provide that meal for many. Read more about the actions Amani is taking below.

The people of Congo are now dealing with the same escalating crisis there that we are in the U.S. and around most of the globe, but with almost no resources compared to what we have here. (Panzi Hospital in Bukavu has only 20 ventilators, the only ones to serve over 5.7 million people in South Kivu.)

With people having no money, and no way to earn money if things are shut down, Amani worries that more people will die from hunger than the Coronavirus / COVID-19.

Thus, your giving is making an impact now, more than ever. Also of note, Amani was trained by John Hopkins University in Health Emergencies in Large Populations (HELP), and your support will allow him to continue his work with the students and community at a safe distance, educating people in proper hand-washing, social distancing, healthy food preparation, and the impact those actions will make on the health of the greater community.

The DRC government has shut down school, churches, and any gathering of more than 20 people for at least four weeks, at which point they will evaluate the next steps based on the spread of the virus and the health response in the country.

Currently, Amani is overseeing a small staff preparing food to be served to the Congo Peace School students in the community for whom the school meals were their only source of food. Your support allows him to triage the community’s needs in fighting hunger and malnutrition as well as sourcing health care for those who fall ill, with access to Nurse Jeanine, a long-time staff member of our team.

The borders with Rwanda and Burundi have been closed, but there is still boat travel from Goma and via Tanzania, so supplies are limited, but available for us to continue to buy the rice and beans for the school meals.

It is also critical that we prepare for when this pandemic has passed, to re-open the school and continue to deepen our work in sustainability for the operations, both through the opening of the school’s boarding houses and the growing (literally!) community farm that will help feed the students. 

The students at the Peace School continue to be a source of hope for us all, like Cito, who shared via video here why she thinks equality will change the world.

We are grateful you are standing with these students and the people of Congo in this time that is unnerving and full of grief. Like never before we’re now reminded of just how connected we all are, how when one is suffering, we all suffer.

I often turn to Rebecca Solnit’s book Hope in the Dark when I need a reminder of what real hope looks like.

“To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk. I say all this because hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. I say it because hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency; because hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal. Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope. … To hope is to give yourself to the future, and that commitment to the future makes the present inhabitable. Anything could happen, and whether we act or not has everything to do with it.” – Rebecca Solnit

 Thank you for taking action with your partnership through Action Kivu. We’ll continue to keep you updated on the impact we see in Congo.

With love & hope –
Rebecca Snavely
Executive Director, Action Kivu

$100 toward 1 laptop for the Congo Peace School

Join us in providing laptops for students at the Congo Peace School! A local electronics supplier in South Kivu was so impressed with Amani Matabaro's vision of peace and equality realized through education and community, that they will sell us gently used laptops at a discounted price.

Most of the students have never seen a computer, and learning computer skills and word processing will give them a boost in education and the platform for economic equality.

With your $100 gift, you will receive a picture of a student using this new tool and showing off what they’ve learned!

Donate here and be sure to include the best email address for us to send you a photo once the laptops are purchased and the students have begun learning how to use them.

Learn more about the Congo Peace School here: https://www.actionkivu.org/peace-school

Wrapping up 2019 with gratitude and a new organic farm!

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” ― Anne Frank

We hope that this busy holiday season you've had time to spend some slow hours embracing the darker winter days, lighting candles in the celebration of Hanukkah, Christmas, or soon, Kwanzaa. 

As we celebrated the winter solstice and now look to lengthening days of light in the northern hemisphere, it's a good time to pause to reflect on what this year has gifted us. Living near the equator, our Congolese partners in South Kivu, DRC don't experience the change of light and length in their days, but they have seen great change in the community of Mumosho because of your commitment to equality and peace through education and entrepreneur training. 

From Amani, our founding director and visionary leader:

With the support of you, our sustaining monthly donors, our partnership with Jewish World Watch, and the Guardian Donors through the Dillon Henry Foundation, we opened the second year of the Congo Peace School on the 3rd of September, 2019 to 280 students in primary classes 1-4 and secondary 1-3, with 44 preschool students in two different classes thanks to the Pedagogical Institute of Los Angeles, making a total of 324 students at the school.

Amani with some of the elementary school students.

We began the year with a one-week training for both the returning staff and newly hired staff. Focusing on the pillars of the Congo Peace School and what makes the project more than just a school, the training approach is participatory and seeks to ensure the teachers and the school support staff grasp clear practical knowledge on the following topics which are at the same time the pillars of the Congo Peace School, based on the philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Congo Peace School teachers and staff engage in the journey to become practitioners of equality, respect, justice, grace, courage, caring, appreciation, simplicity, humility, and integrity, to name just a few. We covered the 64 ways to practice active nonviolence and the approach and methodology was to learn from one another. The first-year staff took the opportunity to teach new staff what they learned last year and this was one of the most exciting parts of the training.

One of the staff shared her experiences: Shukuru Bahizire said, "I am blessed to be part of the Congo Peace School family. This is the first time I am exposed to the content of nonviolence, transformational leadership, entrepreneurship and mental health in school settings. I am happy to learn and practice, I like the training approach [in which] we are discussing issues, we are given the opportunity to talk and speak our mind. However I realize it will take us time to really live a nonviolent life but if we succeed, our school will become a great source of inspiration to the others and it will spread and change is possible."

Shukuru Bahizire

As we raise funds and look for grants to develop the a community farm and animal husbandry program at the school, in order to supplement our school meals program with sustainably grown food, Amani began the project with a nursery filled with cabbages, red onions, carrots, and cucumber. As it’s community permaculture, the plants will be taken from the nurseries to be distributed among community members, with some to be grown on the school farm. In three months, we will be able to harvest if the rains don’t destroy the plants. The harvest depends on how the rains are, but we are expecting more than 500kg of cabbages on the school farm. (That translates to approximately 1,100 lbs of cabbage.)

In the above photo, agronomist Mukengere is teaching permaculture to community members near the Congo Peace School.

We are grateful for your work and support of this community in Mumosho, and Amani's visionary leadership and personal sacrifice. It is a model for the world of working in community to care for each other and meet the needs of individuals as a whole.
 
In the spring of 2019, 42 more women started small businesses, thanks to our family of donors who provided a year of free education for girls and women to learn the skill and trade of sewing, and to Pour Les Femmes for the grant to graduate the students with a machine and the tools necessary to launch their businesses and co-ops. You are part of changing lives and creating greater equality, education, and peace in Congo!

How can you continue to help us grow and deepen this life-changing work?

1. Create a personal post on social media and tag @actionkivu, sharing the impact of Amani’s work and message. Check out our blog for stories to share or re-post stories from our Instagram / Facebook feeds.

2. Make a year-end gift! https://www.actionkivu.org/donate

3. Share with others how a donation to Action Kivu will support a powerful vision for peace, connection, and equality by sharing our website: https://www.actionkivu.org/

4. Become a sustaining member with a monthly donation via https://www.patreon.com/congopeaceschool or https://www.actionkivu.org/. and receive monthly updates from Congo!

We are grateful for the candle you've lit with your commitment to peace and equality. Thank you. Wishing you the happiest of holidays!

DIY: How to make the most of Giving Tuesday (Hint: post early!)

This Giving Tuesday, Facebook has committed $7 million in matching donations to nonprofits! Their campaign starts at 8am Eastern, 5am Pacific, and that matching grant $ will go fast, with all the nonprofits vying for attention. (Where are our early birds who can post / encourage their community to give at 8am Eastern / 5am Pacific?)

This is where you come in! We'd love for you to DIY a personalized #GivingTuesday post for Action Kivu. We've linked to our four complementary initiatives here, and posted photos and links to videos below, that you can download or copy/paste to create a #GivingTuesday post specific to what makes your soul sing.

Whether it's education rooted in peace and nonviolence for kids previously denied access to school because of extreme poverty (the Congo Peace School), AIDS / HIV education and prevention (HIV Education) that literally saves lives through education, testing, and references for medical services, Entrepreneur Training for women to start small businesses, increasing the equality of women in Congo, or our Community Farm, teaching and implementing sustainable, aquaponic farming practices for the future of organic food and combating climate change while ending hunger, there is something for everyone to connect to!

How to: When you log in to Facebook, look in the left hand column, and under "Explore," click on Fundraisers, where you will be prompted to choose a nonprofit. Please share why you've chosen Action Kivu's life-transforming projects. Making it personal makes a difference.

If you're not on Facebook, there are several other ways to engage your community in Giving Tuesday: post on Instagram, Twitter, or compose your own email, and ask people to give via https://www.actionkivu.org/donate. With these options, you can encourage them to make their donation monthly - our sustaining monthly donors are critical to our work, as it makes it possible to plan for the year. With a monthly sustaining donation, people will be added to our monthly update with a video report straight from Congo!

Using the photos and videos posted below, you can highlight the impact a donor makes:

$12 buys one school uniform for a Congo Peace School student, made by a graduate of our Sewing Workshop.

$30 buys two egg-laying hens for the animal husbandry project, to support food security and sustainability.

$55 pays for one month of school for a student complete with with two daily meals, supplies, a backpack, and a uniform.

$150 pays for one month of one of the literacy teacher’s salary.

$200 pays for one month of family planning education and HIV/AIDS testing and prevention.

$660 pays for one year’s Congo Peace School tuition for one student (providing funds for a teacher, assistant teacher, supplies, and the support staff of the school).

https://www.actionkivu.org/peace-school

https://www.actionkivu.org/peace-school

https://www.actionkivu.org/community-farm

https://www.actionkivu.org/entrepreneur-training

https://www.actionkivu.org/hiv-education

Videos:

Amani's overview of Congo and his vision for peace through equality and education.

Student video: Peace Ambassador Rosalie's Thoughts on Nonviolence

Planting Seeds of Peace & Hope: Amani on the impact of nonviolence via a community farm.

We know there are many great nonprofits doing amazing work, and we are grateful that you have chosen to support Action Kivu!

Warmly,
Rebecca
___
Rebecca Snavely
Executive Director, Action Kivu

Brewtique's Holiday Bazaar: A day of celebrating regeneration, local makers & artisans, and Action Kivu's work!

Thanks to Brewtique’s Holiday Bazaar benefitting Action Kivu, we are feeling extra grateful this holiday! It was amazing to meet so many new people and introduce Amani and his vision for peace through education and equality. Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us! Scroll through the galleries of photos below.

To deepen your impact and outreach:

• Make a donation in the name of a friend/family member (make a notation in PayPal's note to seller),

• For $3/month sign-up to be a sustaining member,

• Make a social media post tagging @actionkivu and share the impact of Amani’s work and message,

• Encourage one additional person to become a sustaining member via patreon.com or actionkivu.org,

• Share how your dollars will help support Action Kivu's vision for peace, connection and equality via the attached information sheet,

• Share the video we screened to introduce others to Amani’s vision.

Click on each photo to scroll through the galleries below!

Determined to Learn: Anouarite's Story