Mwendo Congo Continues Fundraising Efforts for Project HEAL

(Healing and Empowering Adolescent Laborers)

Project HEAL is a $60,000 fundraising campaign that we are continuing in 2026. Your donations will support an initiative to empower 40 young women to leave exploitative mining labor, return to public school, and receive job skill training.

In the eastern regions of the DRC, escalating armed conflicts and economic desperation often force young adolescent girls into hard labor and sexual exploitation while working in local mines. It is estimated that 50,000 children and adolescents are currently laboring in these dangerous circumstances, risking their well-being and futures.

Ensuring the Future, Educating the Youth

Empowering and educating youth is an integral part of sustainable development. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), young people have been especially hard hit by the effects of over 20 years of conflict. Of the approximately 6 million people killed in the DRC to date, about half of them are children and countless children have become orphaned. Children are also recruited to become soldiers and are often used in the front lines and taught an incomprehensible way of life in the forest. Rape, used as a weapon of the war, is used indiscriminately and is perpetrated on little children as well as old adults. This use of rape also leads to many children born of rape who are given no status in society and often feared. Finally, many children are forced work in mines to extract blood minerals such as gold and coltan, which eventually makes it into many of the products we use every day.

Fortunately, there are local organizations that have taken on the responsibility of caring for the most vulnerable children who have been affected by the war. One of Mwendo Congo's partners is Let Africa Live (Laissez l'Afrique Vivre, LAV). Founded in 2000, LAV has helped over 3,000 youth through professional training programs and psycho-social support  that give victimized youth the care and skills they need to support themselves and be productive members of their society. LAV also gives financial support to enable young children to attend school and they engage in community education efforts to teach people about the value of women and children in the community. LAV's philosophy, capacity, and success make them an ideal partner in implementing projects toward our mission to support education in the DRC.

Learn more about Let Africa Live and their programs in the DRC here

Successful Past Projects and Impacts

Construction of an auto mechanic shop

In 2024 Mwendo Congo finished raising $70,000 through project HEART (Help Empower Auto Repair Technicians). These funds were used by our partner Let Africa Live (LAV) to operationalize an auto mechanic shop. This shop gives LAV alumni access to modern machines and allows them to expand their automotive services, provide faster completion of projects, and increase their incomes. The center also generates revenue for Let Africa Live, which is key for sustainability of the project. The project included the completion of workshop floors and walls, the purchase and installation of modern equipment, training for young women and men in use of the equipment, and improved automotive repair services for the community.

Carpentry Training

Ten carpenters at the Let Africa Live (LAV) central production site successfully completed their training on modernized equipment in the new workshop.  They are now producing hundreds of classroom chairs and tables, hundreds of church pews and numerous individual custom orders for home furniture. Mwendo Congo board and donors joined their final celebration online in July 2023.  Congratulations to the graduates!  Kudos to LAV staff for meeting all goals of the grant project.  And thank you to all who contributed to Project CAUSE (Carpenters in Action Using New Skills & Equipment)!

Construction of modernized central production site

In early 2020, Mwendo Congo sent $100,000 for the purchase of land to build a central production center in Bukavu and we sent the final part part of a $55,000 grant in July 2020 so construction of the center can be completed. Below are before and after pictures of the construction that commenced in early March, click on the photos to see them full size! More information about the Project JOBS central production site can be found here. More about the ground breaking event can be found here.

Construction of mother and child dormitory space

In 2018 we finished fundraising $71,000 and our partners finished construction for Project SHE (Safe Housing for Education). Before and after pictures of the project are below. The completed dormitory rooms now provide safe housing for 18 women and their children as they receive professional training with our partner Let Africa Live. Find out more here.

Purchase of sewing machines for tailoring graduates

In 2016, Mwendo Congo raised $5,000 to provide 9 women and 1 man with sewing machines and all of the materials they would need to start their own businesses using the skills they learned at Let Africa Live. Mwendo Congo representatives were at the presentation ceremony (pictured right) where they saw the hope that these youth inspire in the community and the support that the community gives to these youth. Families, community members, representatives of local government and others showed up to celebrate the potential of these young people and the gift they have been given to start a new life in the community.

Marceline's Story

Ms. Bonne Année Marceline (17 years old), one of the beneficiaries of this project:

“When I was 15 I was the victim of multiple rapes by armed groups who had taken control of my village, Nindja, in the east of the DRC. Abandoned to my suffering for more than a year with my daughter who was born of these rapes, traumatized and suffering from malnutrition, orphaned from my mother and father, I was close to committing suicide.

By God’s grace I was selected by the organization Let Africa Live. I was trained in sewing and tailoring for 8 months and I was also given counseling to help in my detraumatization. At the end of my training, in August 2015, and because of the financial aid of Mwendo Congo, I received a full tailoring kit for my socio-economic reinsertion. This kit contained a sewing machine, some fabrics to start my own business, rolls of thread, and other items needed to do quality work.

Less than six months after my reinsertion, I am very proud of my integration in the community where I was previously rejected by everyone and traumatized by poverty and hunger. I am becoming a solution for the tailoring needs in my community. My work is very useful for everyone, I make clothes for growing children and young adults too. People in my community give me respect because of the quality of my work, which is well received by my customers.

Yes, Mwendo Congo, with its partner Let Africa Live is serving those who are vulnerable, those who have been abandoned to their suffering. Their work responds directly to those in need and the community. They are close beside us to understand the needs and to find good solutions. The community has confidence in Let Africa Live because of its transparence, the effectiveness of its interventions, and its work against the poverty and marginalization of girls and children victimized by the horrors of the wars in the Eastern DRC.”