Becoming the voice for others

Becoming the Voice for Others

I was born during the Second Congo War, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. My birth was traumatic. There was a shortage of food. There was no clean water. There was high insecurity everywhere. My mother gave birth to me in a country that was actively collapsing around her.

Before I took my first breath, my grandparents, parents, uncles and aunties had already lost children and siblings to years of war and displacement. They had already fled their homes multiple times. They had already lost everything more than once.

Before I could form my first sentence, my mother took her last breath. My mother’s death pushed my sister and I further into extreme poverty. Eating was difficult, I suffered from extreme malnutrition. I would often vomit worms and my belly would swell. The water we drank came from a river, where children would bathe, mothers would wash clothes, and communities would dump waste.

My grandmother, Rosalie Madilu, having already lost several of her children to illness, starvation, waterborne diseases, and lack of medical care, decided the best way to prevent my sister and I from dying was to move to a refugee camp in Zambia.

Life in the camp was not a walk in the park. The moment we arrived there was nowhere for us to sleep, we had to sleep outside in the cold, dark marketplace. After several days of this, we eventually got help from a humanitarian organization. I remember going into the bushes to pick out the straw for our hut. I remember helping my uncle make the bricks for our mud house. I remember putting seeds into soil for the small garden my grandmother had started behind our house. I remember going to wait in line for the aid truck at the refugee center under the scorching hot sun. We would stand in line once the aid truck came by, pushing and shoving, hoping to get a hold of the soya flour and oil they were handing out. Some days we were successful, other days we were not and had to sleep on an empty stomach.

As a continuous pursuit for a better future, my grandparents made the hard decision to go to the main city, where we sold edible dirt at the marketplace to support the family. School was intermittent, we could not afford the fees, my sister and I had to drop out.

Then my family was sponsored to move to Canada. The first few years of living in Canada were extremely difficult, we depended entirely on government aid for seniors, the Canada Child Benefit, food banks, and community support to get by.

The Journey to Hope G.C.L.M. Foundation

Living in Canada did not shield us from what was happening in Congo. We would receive messages, updates about attacks in nearby towns where the majority of our family stayed. We would spend hours and sometimes days wondering if our family was affected as well.

On May 3, 2024, a bomb was dropped on a displacement camp (Mugunga and Lac Vert) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The images and videos that came out of there were disturbing to say the least. I recall seeing a video of a child strapped to their mother’s back. The mother was dead. The child was crying. All I could do was cry uncontrollably for the child because I know what awaits them. Navigating life as an orphan in a place like Congo is not a walk in the park.

As a recent graduate, I knew I could not help my people financially, so I decided to use the only thing I have, my voice. Every day, I showed up writing poetry that told our story and raised awareness to help women and children in the displacement camps get safe drinking water, food and shelter.

Over a course of 30 days I raised over 35,000 Euros and went to East Congo to volunteer in the displacement camps.

Before I left Canada for a country my family had fled from, I had to accept the reality that I may not come back whole or alive. A bomb could drop at any moment, bullets could be fired at random times or I could become among the rape victims. I assumed the dangers and boarded the plane to a country I had not been to in over 16 years. This time around I was not fleeing in the middle of the night, I was willingly going with only one clear goal in mind: give my people water, food and shelter. The things I strongly lacked growing up.

Having volunteered in the camps, I knew I could not go back to Canada and pretend that the genocide and suffering I witnessed is not happening. I knew I had to do something more than temporary aid. Something sustainable, something empowering, something long-lasting, something that restores dignity back to my people.

Hope G.C.L.M. Global Community Lifting Mission Foundation was my answer to that question. I realized not every child, woman, man or family in Congo can escape to a different country for a better life. Therefore, it is important we meet them exactly where they are.

What We Do at Hope G.C.L.M. Foundation

At Hope G.C.L.M. we build water wells, establish community farms, and empower women and children through education and employment. Our goal is simple: everyone eats, everyone gets safe drinking water and everyone gets a chance at a future.

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