How Friends of the Congo is Creating Change & Raising Awareness Globally
An artisanal miner carries a sack of ore at the Shabara artisanal mine near Kolwezi, DRC, on Oct. 12, 2022.
Junior Kannah/AFP via Getty Images
The pain of our Congolese siblings powers our cell phones and electronic devices. “Approximately six million people have been killed since 1996, and more than six million people remain internally displaced in eastern DRC, " journalist Shola Lawal, writes in A Guide to the Decades Long Conflict in the DRC. Mom and I caught up with Maurice Carney, co-founder and Executive Director of Friends of the Congo (FOTC), a non-profit based in the Washington D.C., and founded in 2004; FOTC supports Congelese-led organizations working on the ground to end this genocide, and bring healing to the country.
We discuss the impact of European and U.S. colonization and imperialism on the Congolese people, and the many forces preventing the country from thriving today (for example, multinational corporations, the World Bank, Western governments, local elites, etc.). Maurice also uplifts the mission of Friends of the Congo, multiple ways to take action, resources (films, books, etc. to educate yourself), and focuses on some of the biggest ways we can all help — using our platforms to raise awareness, encouraging people in our communities to speak up, and shifting our purchasing habits towards sustaining the greater good.
For over twenty five years, Maurice Carney has advocated for the dignity and inclusion of Congolese civil society in all efforts towards peace, democracy, food sovereignty, and climate justice. Maurice provides consultation to political leaders in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Africa, the UN, as well as to international NGOs and funders.
Resources & Ways to Take Action:
Visit Friends of the Congo wesbite
Urgent Support Needed for Goma
Fact Sheets on the Congo from FOTC
The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History
by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaj
Photo courtesy of Friends of the Congo
Stay Connected on Social Media:
Friends of the Congo on YouTube
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