History and Vision Presentation of the Mugangu Foundation (FONDAMU)
Background. The Mugangu Foundation (FONDAMU), striving for a Sustainable Congo Future, is a not-for-profit charity. It was created on Good Friday 14 April 2006 and registered under number 92-9884 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on 30 December 2006, as a non-confessional association. FONDAMU establishes on the premise that environmental care can succeed over the long term if local people are delivered from poverty, hunger, displacement, and disease that have accompanied a desperate, protracted war in the Congo. These interlinked issues hinder sustainable development, which can take place only when there is peace and security, and development would proceed best if it takes place in a well-functioning ecosystem. To tackle these challenges, there are two requisites; first to create a cadre of human resources equipped with positive attitude and a vision for sustainable development. Hence there is a need for a next generation of leaders and followers that should uphold sustainable living as the standard. The second requisite is to alleviate poverty for all the people, and practice good governance to ensure peace, democracy, equity and economic growth.
Recent history. In 2005, Congo-Kinshasa is emerging from about 40 years of public mismanagement and ill governance and 11 years of warfare that have claimed 4 million lives. Unfortunately insecurity and aftershocks of the warfare continue in the eastern provinces of the Congo, especially south and north Kivu and the Ituri district. The fabric of the society has disintegrated there. People in eastern Congo are desperately seeking peace, security and initiatives to sustain their livelihoods. They need to survive after several displacement bouts from their villages that followed militiamen activities and invading rebels and renegade refugees out of neighbouring Rwanda, who, over 13 years of presence, have exercised killings by machetes and automatic weaponry, rape, knapping for ransom, all at once as weapons of mass destruction of autochthonous Congolese in the sole objectives to wipe them out and occupy their land. These peasants made a strong resistance to the invading forces. Consequently the poverty has now been exacerbated, and it touches more than 60% of the 7million Kivu population, who live on less than US $1 per day. Many households, whose members used to farm for a living, have now access to only one meal a day. Thousands of war-displaced children are on the streets without shelter, they do not attend school, they have no access to health care, and they face a bleak future. Many other children have been orphaned because their parents were stricken with HIV-Aids through rape or other adversities or have died from warfare. Several hundred thousands of women were victims of rape during warfare in the Congo. Many of them are crippled, homeless or stigmatised by their relatives, and they have no activities to fend for themselves.
In this nightmare the Congolese society is faced with multiple issues that cannot be solved in a single-sided perspective. An integral approach has to be taken. So far rapid economic growth, which exceeds the rate of population growth, is the supposedly poverty alleviation panacea, which is favoured by economists from international organisations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Other neo-colonist strategists claim good governance and struggle against a corrupt bureaucratic system as the solution. Conservation activists and environmentalists claim that nature conservation of biodiversity, safekeeping of carbon sinks without logging the Congo tropical forests are the only seemingly option to consider for the so called well-being of the poor Congolese people. Taken one at a time these strategies are prone to failure, as the underlying causes are not being addressed. Congo society has currently tree poles of interest: (a) an inefficient intellectual elite, who are not fulfilling their guiding leadership role, and (b) a large population of jobless, illiterates with under-served children, who are poor, homeless, uneducated, and with little hope for the future; and (c) the absence of an effective working middle class.
Hence a group of concerned people who live in DR Congo, the USA and Canada created in 2006, under the leadership of Dr. Trinto Mugangu, the Mugangu Foundation that takes the love out of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ as its founding cornerstone. They follow the example of the charitable life of late Daniel Mugangu (deceased in July 1987), as their role model for charity and community work. Ever since, more than 4,500 have adhered to the Mugangu Foundation as potential benefactor and beneficiary members.
Mission Statement. The mission of the Mugangu Foundation is to promote peace, economic development, and environmental sustainability (a) by hosting a dialogue on a sustainable future for Congo-Kinshasa among the elite, (b) by promoting an integrated approach to combat poverty through microcredit, support to various livelihood schemes such as traditional organic agriculture with manure or mulching, reintroduction of cattle and small farming for village food security, and biodiversity conservation, and (c) by providing vulnerable war-displaced or returnee people, raped women, widows, and orphaned young people with shelter, entrepreneurship skills, and leadership training they need to fully participate in the construction of a democratic Congo.
Goal. The goal of the Mugangu Foundation is threefold: (a) to promote peace, security, democracy and responsible leadership among the elite through prospective reflections on a sustainable future for Congo-Kinshasa; (b) to assist vulnerable people, such as raped women, widows, blind, handicapped people, to become self-reliant in combating poverty; and (c) to provide shelter to the war-displaced and orphaned youth and teach them leadership skills for sustainable living, which includes forward-looking stewardship of the environment.
Integral approach. The Mugangu Foundation for Future Congo proposes an integral approach to promote peace, security and democracy in a sustainable society, with an emphasis on nature conservation, sustainable living and good governance. To bring about such a society of equity there is a need to tackle the Congo problems at both ends: the elite and the poor children within their village or inner-city communities. For the elite there is a need to promote effective leadership by involving them in development of a strategy for solving the problems at hand, to devise a vision for the future, and to lobby the public managers and corporate interests on specific, measurable steps. For the poor segment of society, there is a need to provide them with livelihood alternatives, that would bring back confidence in themselves and hope in their future. For homeless orphaned children, a new kind of leadership training institution will be established to teach them self-reliance and sustainable living, and members of the elite would impart training for a generation of future leaders.
 These orphaned children are learning carpentry at Nyabunkungu in Ngweshe |
Vision & implementation on the grounds. The Mugangu Foundation for a Sustainable Future Congo will provide grounds for the elite to make prospective reflections for a sustainable society in the Congo. FONDAMU will design microcredit and other livelihood alternative schemes for the village poor to become self-reliant and get back to farming their land with improved seedlings, and with opportunities for animal husbandry using sustainable techniques for managing cattle and soils. The Foundation will also provide a clean home and a foster family for orphaned and war-displaced children where they will be trained in sustainable practices. This will be their base whence they will be sent to school. The children will develop resource savvy, particularly regarding conservation of water and electricity, garbage recycling and disposal, and self-sufficiency. Their training will include leadership in sustainable living. They will be taught skills in small business creation and ownership. They will learn various crafts, especially carpentry so that they can lead in the value-added tropical forest products industry. They will be taught an appreciation for Congolese plants and animals through studies in backyard gardening, plant taxonomy, traditional medicine, wildlife conservation, and habitat restoration. These children are destined to become leaders and voters who will carry out the vision of democracy, peace and prosperity for all Congolese. They will become a living example of equity and sustainable living in a society that must build upon the following pillars of peace and security; that is, sustainable development and management of natural resources, conservation of biodiversity, and good governance.
Please donate to FONDAMU to make this vision a reality. Your gift can bring a new smile to someone who has lost hope in the war torn Congo.
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