Click here to donate to the Congo Connect Youth Initiative!
Support the global education and mobilization campaign of the Friends of the Congo by making an online contribution. The campaign entails the following:
• Organize forums on the Congo
• Show films on the history and current situation in the Congo
• Speak to myriad institutions about the social, political and economic climate
• Inform the global community about what individuals and institutions can do to work with the Congolese people to change the situation in their country for the better
• Organize trips to the Congo
• Mobilize support for student, women, labor, human rights and other Congolese organizations striving to control their resources and utilize them for the benefit of the Congolese masses.
Support the Women of Congo
Friends of Congo works with the Association of Widows located in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Association has been in existence since 1975. It is made up of over 5,000 widows located in 35 parishes in the South Kivu province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A key aim of the organization is to serve the widows of those who have lost their men as a result of the war that has claimed over 5.4 million Congolese since 1998. The Association of Widows also works with women who have been victims of rape and sexual abuse in an effort to provide them a support network and integration back into society.
The Association provides training, skills development, cultural education, health-care, child-care and numerous other services for the women, children and the communities from which they come. A top priority for the Association is the care of thousands of women and orphans who have been victims of rape and sexual violence as a result of the conflict in the East of the Congo.
Find out more about the situation of women in the Congo
Support the Youth
Yole!Africa is a centre of art, creativity and cultural exchange based in Goma, Eastern DR Congo and Kampala, Uganda. It was founded in 2000 by Congolese filmmaker, Petna Ndaliko and Dutch anthropologist Ellen Lammers. Its mission is to promote peace through art and culture as well as to operate as a platform for exchange where young people from different backgrounds and social status can come together to express themselves through their talents.
Yole!Africa is neither a political nor denominational organization, through its programs it promotes and encourages value and respect for all human beings (regardless of race, origin, religion, ethnicity, gender, language, or economic status), and stands against all forms of exploitation or violation of human rights.
The organization seeks to promote and encourage art. It supports artists and offers them a place conducive to creativity. It also wants to link the community and its artists to strengthen the common culture and identity. Through training, workshops and community events, it promotes dialogue and respect for others and wants to generate, through debate and reflection on current social and political issues, the awareness that everyone is an actor of his/her life and the society in which he/she lives and has the right and duty to make of it a better place.