A woman learns tailoring skills at the vocational training and residential school called New Hope Academy.
Congo Peace focuses on these main priorities:
Reconciliation
Jesus teaches the message of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation in the Bible. The Congo-based, multi-tribal team shares this message with all the tribes in the community. They teach the Gospel of loving your neighbor and offer opportunities for each tribe to live, learn, work and play together with others. Through these efforts, we pray that the hostile tribes will forgive one another, reconcile, and unite in one community.
​
Our Priorities
Vocational Training and a Sustainable Future
The Minembwe region, along with the entire South Kivu province, is a multi-tribal community that has lost so much – lives, homes, livestock, etc. Minembwe has little existing infrastructure and opportunities for training and work are limited. Our goal is to provide the tools they need to recover from the damage they have suffered so that they can rebuild their community and provide for themselves, trusting in their future to be safe and healthy.
-
Vocational School and Training Center near Bukavu
In Spring of 2025 the New Hope Academy ccompleted construction and opened to its inaugural class of students. New Hope Academy is a vocational school and educational center that provides a one-year residential training program where young people from warring tribes can live together and learn entrepreneurial skills, vocational training, and agricultural education in an atmosphere of reconciliation.
The education center was built near Bukavu to provide vocational training to young men and women from the area so that they can return to their homeland with opportunities for a sustainable future. This location was chosen because Minembwe is currently too dangerous and the area is quite remote making it a cost-prohibitive place to build.​​​
The New Hope Academy near Bukavu - a residential vocational school and eduational center.
The New Hope Reconciliation Center is a Community Center that serves many purposes and provides the tribes have a common place to come together in peace and reconciliation.
-
​​​ Community Center in Minembwe
A community hall, the New Hope Reconciliation Center, was completed in June 2022 to provide a common space for gathering, worshipping, and learning. The center is built on land donated by the Minembwe community leaders in anticipation of having a common gathering place. In addition, the center temporarily provided shelter to 50 orphans and vocational training for nearly 100 widows and men.
Emergency Relief
When people are starving and living without basic needs, it is hard to focus on forgiveness and reconciliation. Therefore, we have provided emergency food and nutritional supplements to people in several villages, with special emphasis on children and pregnant and nursing mothers. We also provided opportunities for tribes to plant crops together, sowing the seed and harvesting the crops with one another, and then sharing equally in the harvest. Food security and undernourishment are daily challenges of villagers affected by ongoing violence and persecution. People work side by side with different tribes to plant crops that will help feed their families for years to come.
