New Videos: Congo Peace School 6th Grade Graduation, Preschool Student, and Students Reflect on Art

This past summer the Congo Peace School offered an art course, taught by volunteers from a university in nearby Bukavu. Before this unique course – a rarity in a region where many of the children’s families can’t afford a pencil and paper, let alone paints – we asked four of the students to define what art means to them. And now we follow-up with them, after they have completed the course.

Before: 6th grader Ambika had said, “Drawing, painting, and that’s it.” Ambika signed up for the art class to learn more, to discover new things.

After: “I had no idea children of our ages could learn and achieve what we achieved during the art class. When we started learning how to draw using a pencil, I had no idea we were to do more. When we started shredding the papers I was a little bit disappointed but when we started making dough from waste paper, it gave me hope, but I could not have imagined we would be able to achieve making a flamingo. The day we made it, I loved art more and more and can't wait to be in another summer class and learn how to achieve more. Now I know that art is everything, it's more than drawing and painting: art is an expression and can be used in many ways.” – Ambika

Before: Fellow 6th grader Mushagalusa had said, “I think art is just drawing and I very much like to draw. I signed up for the art class because I am curious and want to learn. This is exceptional, no other school has a formal art class, I am lucky and happy to be a student at the Congo Peace School. There is no other way I make art apart from drawing at school but nobody teaches you, you have to do it on your own.”

After: “After our summer art class, now I know that art is not only about drawing at school, but also more than that. It's a very complex area, it's many things at a time, someone can communicate and speak through art, and it can be used to express or demand peace. I am very proud to have achieved this dove as a symbol of peace that our country is hungry for.” – Mushagalusa

Before: 4th grader Nsimire had simply said, “I had never heard about art before. I want to learn and discover. I like colors.”

After: ''I discovered art and I like it, now I know that it's a combination of many things coming together to achieve one thing like the fish we were able to achieve as a group. I am very curious to learn more next summer.'' – Nsimire

Before: Agisha had defined art as “using pencil and color crayons to draw or paint or write like on the walls of our school.* But I didn’t know children like us can do art. I signed up for this class to learn art.” (*The school has murals and quotes around the campus.)

After: ''It is very amazing, it makes me happy to see children like us being a part of this process. From simple pencil drawing to cutting paper, then putting them together and making the ‘dough,’ mixing it with paint and then come up with a lamp! I had only been seeing these things in books here at our school. I am very excited about achieving more during the next summer art program. Why is there no art class in the school curriculum?'' – Agisha

You are part of this joy-inducing, life-giving community! A big thank you to everyone who gives monthly or annually to support this unique school that is creating equality and peace from the inside out.

Currently the Congo Peace School’s powerful curriculum rooted in peace and nonviolence is funded by our community of donors and foundation grants to the level that we often employ art as therapy, but we want to change the answer to Agisha’s last question and sustainably expand the offerings, including art and other vocational trainings. Please share these stories with friends and family to help us grow our community of support.  

⚪ As the new school year kicked off in September, the Congo Peace School celebrated the graduation of Grade 6 students into Grade 7 (or 1st grade secondary, as it is known in DRC). This ceremony was the first of its kind in Mumosho, and rare in South Kivu and Eastern Congo. The gowns were made by many of the graduates of Action Kivu’s Sewing Workshop – just one illustration of how our programs build upon and support each other.

Family and community members gathered to celebrate the special day. Please watch the video with the volume up to celebrate with these students who all passed the nationwide standardized test to graduate into secondary school!

The sense of self-worth this helps provide is priceless. Thank you for investing in the lives of so many in this way.

⚪ The Nest is the preschool at the Congo Peace School – three classrooms supported by our partner PILA Global in fostering curiosity and a sense of agency in the students ages 4 to 6 years old, preparing them for elementary school where they are encouraged to question and think critically, unlike so many schools in the region.

Amani shared the following video with the notes: Marcelin Murhula is a 5-year-old Congo Nest student who demonstrates remarkable oral communication skills, initiative-taking, sharing his thoughts, and thinking critically.

In the video, Marcelin is speaking correct French (the official language of education in DRC, and the third language citizens learn, after a local dialect and Swahili). Here he is talking about his school, saying: ''our school is called Congo Peace School. It’s beautiful, it has three levels: preschool, elementary, and secondary. We have amazing caregivers and teachers, they teach us reading, writing, and numeracy. May Congo Peace School live long!” 

⚪ Lastly, we just finished a new video that highlights so much of what is special about the Congo Peace School – please watch and share!

With gratitude for your continued partnership and drive to create a more equitable, just, and peace-filled world.

Transforming Ourselves to Transform the World

As I sat down to share the Congo Peace School update from Amani, a theme arose: Transforming ourselves to transform the world. Oftentimes it seems the universe is trying to teach us critical lessons by showing us different versions of them, how the same theme is playing out in various ways around the world, in different people.

As Amani posed questions to some of the Congo Peace School teachers, their answers echoed what I’d just read via writer and activist adrienne maree brown. On Instagram, brown shared some of the lessons she’s learned (and is learning) from Grace Lee Boggs, writing: 

“Grace also said, 'We must transform ourselves to transform the world,’ which is taking me years to understand and embody. The way I think of it now is in the framework of the imagination battle: there is a war going on for the future—it is cultural, ideological, economic, and spiritual. And as in any war, there is a front line, a place where the action is urgent, where the battle will be won or lost. The world, the values of the world, are shaped by the choices each of us make. Which means my thinking, my actions, my relationships, and my life create a front line for the possibilities of the entire species. Each one of us is an individual practice ground for what the whole can or cannot do, will or will not do."

— adrienne maree brown

Your support gives the foundation for the teachers and support staff of the Congo Peace School to transform themselves, and teach in a way that allows the students to transform themselves, inside out, to be true ambassadors of peace and social justice.  

Read what some of the teachers shared as the differences between the Congo Peace School’s approach to education from the local Congolese schools they attended or taught at before joining the Congo Peace School. The impact of your giving is already being seen in lives transformed, which will transform the world.

Daniel teaches Geography, and has been at the Congo Peace School (CPS) since the first year, in September 2018. He shared: “I am 33 and started teaching at CPS when it started. Prior to that I had been a teacher of geography for six years in different local schools. The difference between how I teach at CPS and how I was taught is like night and day as far as many aspects are concerned.  At the CPS, I never use corporal punishment to correct children’s mistakes during my teaching sessions, while as a student, I was often caned any time I failed to answer any question by the teacher.  

“The way I ask questions to my students at the CPS is totally different from how our teachers were asking us questions. Most of our questions from our teachers were closed questions, yes or no questions, whereas at the CPS our question approach is mostly divergent questions, allowing students to speak their minds and to promote critical thinking. I like how we teach students at CPS because of notions like respect, equality, peace, justice, and nonviolence, and I have realized that these ideas help children grow up with self confidence with no fear. When I was in secondary school, we feared our teachers and we were not allowed to ask any questions.”

Photo Credit: Tomaso Lisca

When asked, how do you think this method of teaching students will make an impact in their lives? In your community? In your country? Daniel replied: “This method of teaching is helping the students transform their trauma and suffering. They are growing up without fear and learning to respect each other and every human being at a community level. Knowing the rights of others is key in the stability of every human society. Promoting the culture of positive values helps countries to stabilize and thrive. So, the Congo Peace School is not a school for only the students who attend it but us teachers also because we keep learning day by day.”

Lydie first started at the Congo Peace School as a secondary school teacher before transitioning to be the elementary school principal. In response to what is different about the CPS from her previous educational experience, she shared that when she first started working, she was “attracted by the different writings on the walls, quotes summarizing the philosophy of the CPS teaching approach. I was mostly attracted by the saying: Fighting hatred, learning tolerance and seeking justice and equality. These are things I was never exposed to in the school I went to. We teach students in promoting positive leadership as opposed to exercising our authority and power over our students.”

The impact of this method of teaching, she says, comes from the understanding of their freedom. “Free leaders will lead their countrymen with freedom and this is where I see our teaching approach will have an impact on the students as future leaders, and on the community they will lead, and that will spread freedom over the entire country. It’s amazing to see how the students are being transformed at the individual level, being open, free in thinking and the community is directly impacted by having their members bring about change. I can’t wait to see how the country is going to be changed by these students.”

Clovis teaches 6th grade elementary, and is realizing the difference having access to a library and computer lab make at the Congo Peace School. “I went to a school with no books for the students but here at the CPS we have the unique chance to have books for students and teachers all the  time. With more than 10 years experience in the elementary school teaching system, I never taught students using a real computer, but here at the CPS, right after I was hired, I took a training in computer skills. The whole time I was a student in both elementary and secondary schools, I never saw a computer.”

CPS computer lab and part of library. Photo Credit: Tomaso Lisca

“Teaching respect, peace, spreading love, and especially the psychosocial component [of the Congo Peace School] makes it more and more beautiful, because children have someone who will listen to them and help them heal. The different trauma healing activities the teachers are involved in is unique, I never experienced that as a student.”

Reflecting on the impact of the school’s curriculum, Clovis said, “Our CPS teaching approach will and is already impacting the lives of our students as individuals, healing to be part of their school beloved community, and their healing is spreading to the community and the country will benefit having healed citizens.”

Fitina, who has over 16 years experience teaching elementary school, shared, “As teachers at the Congo Peace School, we don't only teach maths, languages, and history, we go beyond, we promote human rights. I deeply like the CPS teaching approach as long as it is centered on peace.”

Echoing Grace Lee Boggs, Fitina noted, “Everyone needs peace as a right, having children who understand that peace begins within themselves, they are giving peace to others at a community level and then the entire country. Our teaching approach helps students transform themselves, then transform the community and the country. Otherwise, untransformed suffering will be transferred.”   

Amani also shared photos of the students relaxing and playing at the Congo Peace School’s campus. In a country mired in conflict, with recent bouts of armed conflict in neighboring areas (Mumosho remains a peaceful region), these kids and young adults feel safe at the school. 

Your partnership allows these students the healing space and practices, the loving teachers and staff necessary to transform their trauma, pain, and fear and then transfer peace into their community, country, transforming our world. 

Rosalie's Story & Charlene's Studies (March 2022)

“The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.
”

— Kiran Desai

In our fourth year of the Congo Peace School, we see that some changes are gradual, and some are seemingly instant. More gradual is the deepening understanding of how the practices of peace, nonviolence, and equality affect one’s life, family, and community, while some changes are immediately visible, like the change we witnessed in Rosalie from July 2018 to September of that year, and now, four years later, in her leadership at the school.

In July 2018, Rosalie and her brother came to the school while it was still under construction. They had recently lost both their parents to AIDS, and were naturally devastated, and in shock and grief. Amani immediately enrolled them in the first year of the Congo Peace School, promising them everything that entails, daily meals, uniforms, and access to the nurse and the school counselor, trained in psycho-social techniques.

When I returned to the school only two months later, shortly after we opened in September, 2018, I didn’t recognize Rosalie. She smiled, she posed for her portrait with confidence, and told me that she dreamed of using her education to be president of Congo one day.

Now, Rosalie is in the 5th grade of the secondary school, and acted as the student representative for the International Women’s Day gathering held this March at the Congo Peace School, where the students, staff, and community honored the progress made and challenged each other and the world to work harder for women’s equality and equity.

Speaking to a room of fellow students and adults, Rosalie concluded her speech on leadership by the following words: “Dear friends, brothers and sisters, we all have to understand what leadership is all about, a leader is someone who is able to inspire, guide. … You are a girl, you are a woman, do not underestimate yourself that you cannot lead a group. My wish is that the DRC’s next president is a woman and maybe through a woman DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] will change, that is what I wish. Thank you.”

Photos of Rosalie and her brother in July 2018 to her the first semester of September 2018 to now.

Rosalie & brother, July 2018

Rosalie, September 2019

Rosalie, March 2022

As we continue to work with students in a trauma-informed model, we are excited to share that our Founding Director Amani Matabaro’s eldest daughter Charlene is back in Congo and volunteering at the Peace School after graduating from Hope International University in Fullerton, California this past December (2021) with a degree in Psychology, Counseling and Child Development.

Having been away from Congo for over five years, Charlene shared, “In my mind, I was coming back home to rest, spend time with my family, friends and above all, I was excited to visit the Peace School.”

“The week I arrived,” Charlene wrote, “I went immediately to discover what the Congo Peace School really is. I drove 50 minutes from Bukavu, my hometown, and upon arrival I was amazed by the building and how clean and green the school is.

“I was curious to see if the same beauty and greenery were also in the hearts of the students, teachers and the community around the school,” Charlene shared. “I was interested in discovering the school has a dispensary where children and teachers get some first aid assistance, the school has a cafeteria where they take lunch and a light breakfast every morning. This is unlike almost all other schools in the entire country.

“I went deeper to see how the school children were doing as far as their mental health is concerned and to see if they needed social support.”

Charlene reflects on the trauma of living in Eastern Congo, where the threat of armed conflict creates instability and fear: “After speaking with a few elementary and secondary school students whose ages range between 6 and 18 years old, I started seeing and feeling the level of trauma among the children. I arrived at the school the same period of time when one of the preschool teachers was returning from hospital after she had survived an attack by gunmen, and she was shot in the face. The school children knew about it, and some children told me they are very much afraid because of what might happen any time to any of them.” 

(Our preschool teacher Pascaline continues to receive treatment for the wounds on her face. The doctor is confident she will fully recover, but it is a slow process. Amani shares: This severe trauma Pascaline is experiencing is another reason why we need to keep raising our voices for peace and justice.)

Charlene continues: “Meeting and speaking to the CPS teachers and students made me feel there is a good reason why I went to Hope International University and studied Psychology, Counseling and Child Development – it’s exactly what my country needs. It needs healing while it also needs repair of the physical infrastructures, but I strongly believe that mentally and emotionally healed people can easily and quickly physically heal and repair their nations.”

Charlene has been working with the student body, teaching them group activities to access healing.  We send a big thank you to Charlene, for using her skills, education, and compassion to help us all in the path to peace and healing.

Charlene with several students in one of the preschool classrooms supported by PILAglobal.

Speaking to students one-on-one, Charlene shares that 11th grader Samuel Mushagalusa is very motivated to read books. He shared that: "Growing up, I never saw a library in my entire life until I started school at Congo Peace School. We must do well in school because we have books. I wish I could meet some of our donors just to say thank you for what they do."

On behalf of student Samuel and his classmates, teachers, and all of us: Thank you! Your giving is changing the world in this visible, concrete way.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
”

— Margaret Mead

More images from Tomaso Lisca's visit to the school:

CPS Computer Lab & Library. Photo by Tomaso Lisca

Amani teaches the practices of regenerative farming to CPS students. Photo by Tomaso Lisca

Hope in the Dark: One Student's Determination

When the entire world seems consumed by unnecessary trauma and violence, I find it difficult to write about hope, and turn often to Rebecca Solnit, whose work and writing is rooted in the investigation of human behavior, and hope in the dark.

““Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. 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... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.””

— Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

 Your partnership with the people of Congo is active hope – it is the daily practice of work that invests in a future led by people who have done the work to heal wounds and know the value of peace and equality.

Perhaps you also need a dose of hope today? Take a moment to look at Anouarite’s determination and joy in these photos and stories.

An orphan who had no one to send her to school, in 2018 Anouarite had enrolled in the adult literacy classes Action Kivu provides for women, and seeing the Congo Peace School built, was determined to attend.

Anouarite, pictured far right in the front row, eyes closed, with some of her Adult Literacy classmates in July, 2018.

Amani showing Anouarite a peace sign in 2018, after she asked him if she could attend the Congo Peace School when it opened.

Thus, when she enrolled in our first year in 2018, Anouarite was older than all her classmates. Her 2nd and 3rd grade teacher Salomé describes Anouarite as a highly committed student, quiet and intelligent, able to learn quickly, with enthusiasm. Anouarite enjoys writing and reading classes, and struggles more with mathematics. "She is an amazing student to teach and have in a classroom,” said Salomé.

Our Founding Director Amani Matabaro recently spoke to Anouarite, now in the fourth grade. “The beginning of the school year was challenging with all the sad news about the pandemic,” she said. “I was worried, but at this point I am not. This year I like being in school and I will be as long as the Congo Peace School can support me. I like teacher Jeanine and how she cares for all of us in the classroom, we are like her own children. Being in a school where I can get food, school uniforms, and medicine gives me a new hope for my future.

Anouarite in 4th Grade, Feb 2022. Photo by Tomaso Lisca

“My favorite parts of the school year so far was two weeks ago when we were told about the importance of tree planting and how they contribute to keep our environment healthy. I like all the writing and reading classes. I like reading and being with friends. The main challenges include not having food if I’m not at school, I have no clothes apart from my school uniforms. I need to learn more in calculations.”

Photo credit: Tomaso Lisca

In February, we had three interns from the Bukavu Higher College of Rural Development who are learning to put their theories into practice at our community farm. The students and staff also planted 400 Grevilea trees around the marsh farm, raised from seed to sapling! The trees bring more birds to the area, and the falling leaves provide good fertilizer mixed with our composting system.

Photo credit: Tomaso Lisca

Amani planting trees with Congo Peace School students, a community neighbor observes. Photo credit: Tomaso Lisca

A bit more about Anouarite’s teachers, as your partnership is also employing women, providing them the means to thrive in their careers, to be examples of women in leadership in their community, and to send their own children to school while bringing home the unique lessons of peace, nonviolence, and equality from the Congo Peace School curriculum.

4th Grade Teacher Kujirakwinja Rutagaya Jeanine is a CPS teacher with 10 years of experience in elementary school teaching. This is her third year at the CPS.  Jeanine is a mother of four, two sons and two daughters. 

"It is lovely having Anouarite as a student, Jeanine said. "She likes school, she has friends in the classroom, and is always ready to bring her classmates together when there is an argument. During classes, she asks a lot of questions in almost all the subjects, she makes lessons alive with interactions. She is very honest."

Salomé wears a Jewish World Watch shirt - one of our amazing partners over the years!

Teacher Fitina Masheka Salomé is one of the CPS elementary school teachers. She’s been an elementary school teacher for 19 years. Not only does she teach the students at the school, she is a mother of seven kids, five daughters and two sons. Over her experience, Salomé has taught in all the elementary school grades and for the last four years since the Congo Peace School opened, she’s taught both 2nd and 3rd grade, and taught Anouarite both of those years.

““Hope just means another world might be possible … Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.””

— Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the DarkQuote Source

Thank you to all our partners for taking action by investing in a world where we can see the positive impact and lasting change of an education rooted in peace, nonviolence, equality, love, and hope.

Congo Peace School Student Stories on MLK's Impact in Their Lives

This January, we honored the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., but at the Congo Peace School, MLK’s teachings of peace and nonviolence are a daily part of life, and are changing lives! The six key principles of nonviolence as taught by Martin Luther King Jr. are part of the core curriculum at the Congo Peace School: The teachers and students study and learn the concepts and then come back together in a reflection meeting. In small groups the students discuss and share ideas about how the principle they focused on can be used as a compass in different everyday life contexts. “It's amazing how the students are interpreting these in their daily lives,” Amani Matabaro, our Founding Director, said. He spoke to several of the students to share what principle most affected their lives this past month.

Best friends Bulonza (age 12) & Iranga (age 11) are classmates in the first grade of secondary school. When the two girls first came to the Congo Peace School their grandparents were involved in a land conflict, and this affected the relationships between the two families.

During a reflection session in a small group sharing thoughts on the principles of nonviolence over the month of January 2022, both Bulonza and Iranga revealed that they have become great friends from the time they were in a group discussion about Principle Two: Nonviolence Seeks to Win Friendship and Understanding. The outcome of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.*

This principle means a lot to these students; it’s all about achieving a reconciled world by raising the level of relationships among people to a height where justice, love, and peace prevail and people attain their full human potential. Bulonza and Iranga are great friends, and their friendship is the result of the teaching of these principles at the Congo Peace School, Amani reports.

18 year old Samuel is in the 5th grade of secondary school. Samuel lives with his grandparents; they do not know the whereabouts of his parents, if they are even alive. Samuel was willing to share his story to illustrate the change that he has experienced by practicing peace and nonviolence through the Congo Peace School.  He was born from rape and does not know his biological father. All through childhood Samuel lived with what he thought that meant about him, and the social situations it created for him. 

When Samuel first began attending the Congo Peace School, he revealed he hated himself, that he was violent against himself and others. When asked what he learned this past month, Samuel shared he has fallen in love with Kingian Nonviolence Principle Five: “Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate. Nonviolence resists violence to the spirit as well as the body.”   Samuel says that for some time now, he feels there is no need to hate himself, no need to always be angry and violent against himself and others. For Samuel, the month of January 2022 is a month of determination.  “Even my grandparents have discovered how peaceful I am living with them,” he said.

At 14 years old, Bayubasire is one of the older students in the 1st grade of secondary school. At his age, he would normally be in 3rd grade secondary, but because of the ongoing instability in Congo, he was forced to be out of school for two years. “Education is a right to every child in the world, but these wars in our country are the worst form of injustice imposed on people,” Amani shared.

When asked about what principle of nonviolence stands out for him right now, Bayubasire shared how he loves Principle One: “Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.” Bayubasire said, “It’s only with courage that I am going to catch up on lost time.” Over the past month, he determined to confront life with more courage.
 
*The Six Principles can be found at The King Center

Your investment in the lives of these students cannot truly be measured in terms of the immense impact today as well as long-term, but we can SEE real change occurring, and it is powerful. 

Thank you for choosing to commit to peace, nonviolence, love, and equality for these students and our world!

2021 Matching Grant Drive

As you consider your year-end giving and your connectedness to our brothers and sisters in Congo, please consider giving to Action Kivu! With our Board & Friends Matching Grant Drive, every dollar you donate is doubled up to $10,500, giving us $21,000 to invest in the Congo Peace School and community 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. Donate 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!

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

Clean Energy & More Classrooms: The Power of Individual Actions when Combined in Community

While we always focus on the journey of the students and staff whose lives are changing because of the Congo Peace School, this month’s update highlights physical, practical changes to the campus itself.

The global pandemic shows us what we have the power to do individually. How many of us started cutting our own hair, baking our own bread, managing online school for kids? (Hopefully not simultaneously.)  

It also highlighted the power our individual actions take on when we bring them together collectively.

The Congo Peace School is a prime example of this power of individuals and collective community action. We've had individuals commit to leaps of growth, and individuals coming together to give monthly or annually to help meet the costs of a school that serves the most vulnerable.

This spring, Susan Saltz, in honor of Anita Saltz and the Gary Saltz Foundation, committed to funding the construction of 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, the construction began this summer!

The two preschool classes of 22 students each (1: ages 4-5 and 2: ages 5-6) were previously housed in two of the main school building’s classrooms, with 22 students from Preschool 2 matriculating into first grade. Within a short amount of time, the first-grade teacher reported a clear difference in the students who had attended the preschool, which provides the pedagogy and tools for exploring curiosity and finding ones creativity and voice. The students from the preschool were more vocal and confident in asking questions, in exploring the subject matter with the teachers.

Photo Credit: PILA Global

With that in mind – our visionary leader Amani Matabaro saw the need for three preschool classes – so that all the 40 new incoming first graders would have benefited from a year of preschool. Having been a patron of the school and PILA Global programs from the beginning, when Susan Saltz learned that the classes needed a new home, as the main school expands this fall 2021 from 9 grades to 11 of its eventual 12, she committed the necessary funds.

We are honored to partner with organizations via grants (a thank you to Jewish World Watch for their most recent grant for this ongoing school year) and the Guardian Program via the Dillon Henry Foundation.

We couldn’t function daily without the ongoing giving of individuals – from $3 / month to $200 / month to annual gifts, you all play a vital role in the life of this community of students and staff, who are already influencing their families and communities, and will continue on as Peace Ambassadors for the nation, and world. 

“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”
― Nelson Mandela

As the three classrooms neared completion, Amani gathered the community together. The Congo Peace School is a point of pride for Mumosho, and the community feels a shared ownership to protect it, honor its mission, and support it however they can.

Asking their thoughts on the school and its impact on the community as well as their commitment to it, Amani learned that the parents and neighbors wanted to ensure a campus that could grow with the school’s vision – specifically to build three more classrooms as a second level above the new preschool classrooms. With the Congolese curriculum, secondary students declare a major in their last few years in high school, and to accommodate more majors, which will also attract more boarding house students to create more local sustainable funding, more classrooms dedicated to additional majors are needed.

With the community promising labor hours and whatever they could contribute, in addition to Amani’s commitment via a personal loan, and his salary payment from a recent outside job working with Lisa Shannon’s Every Woman Treaty, they were able to find the funds themselves for the second story – and work began, to be finished with the roof, doors, and windows at the end of August.

Our next exciting news: clean energy! The solar panels were installed at the Congo Peace School, thanks to a partnership with GivePower Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to extending the environmental and social benefits of clean, renewable energy around the globe. In partnership with Nuru, a Congolese renewable energy utility, the installation, designed to support these children historically affected by violence, were made possible by Congo Power (founded by Alyssa Newman, an Action Kivu board member), an initiative backed by Google, and by Silfab Solar, which generously donated equipment.

There was a small glitch in the system’s converter that Nuru is currently solving, so the full spectrum of sun-sourced power is not yet being utilized at the school, but they are able to use the power selectively, specifically to host computer classes. Amani notes that the fight against digital illiteracy is a big challenge in many sub-Saharan African schools. Thanks to solar power, and to all of your support, we are fighting for digital literacy with sustainable means!

Photo credit: Esther Nsapu

As Amani noted in conversation in July 2020 with Robin Wright, “[With] solar equipment at the Congo Peace School … this will make a significant difference. It goes a long way with our vision of not harming our environment. If we want to stay nonviolent, nonviolent within ourselves. Nonviolent with our community around us. Non-violent with our environment.

“[Solar power] will enable us to power our computer and conference room and the dorms … this will make a big difference, if we stop using generators that are killing our environment. And the generator is costing us money to kill our environment: it is like violence, violence costs money to destroy the world. Yes, it is like hatred, it costs money to destroy what is around us. So the solar system … will make a huge and significant difference. It is going to translate our friendship with our environment.”

Not only will the boarding houses have power, allowing the Peace School to enroll students from nearby cities to live and study at this unique school and pay tuition that will offset the costs of local kids whose families cannot afford it, but the power affects the greater community, as the school will be able to offer more trainings and resources.

As we celebrate both the leaps made in new classrooms and new sustainable power, we also look to the needs as we grow the school from 9 grades this year to 11 in 2021 / 2022. Your giving is critical, and we are grateful.

The impact is clear when we see the freedom with which children, still burdened with so much trauma in their community, country, and world, are expressing themselves through dance, play, learning, and art.

Students dancing at the Congo Peace School – filmed by Esther Nsapu

Please share this update with your communities so that we can grow the family of donors as we continue to focus on local sustainability via farm to table meals, paying boarding students, and more.

$3 per month on Patreon pays for 3 backpacks a year. $660 per year or $55 per month covers the tuition costs of a student, including meals, uniforms, masks, and access to the library and computer lab. Click here to set up your monthly gift!

Thank you to our current partners for making this vision a reality!