Congo Education Partners

Dear friends, I want to express our gratitude to you for being there for Djolu Technical College during CEP's year-end fundraising season – and for our American donors, we hope you’re finding ways to resist the attacks on our democracy. Thanks to you, we raised $25,000 at year's end for Djolu professors’ salaries and women’s scholarships! In other news, CEP received its second $25,000 grant from Rick Steves Europe in December, for which we are very grateful. In addition, CEP’s Grants Team is hard at work writing other letters of inquiry and foundation grant proposals. We are also excited to report that CEP Advisor Pappy Orion, a gifted photographer and filmmaker, will travel to Djolu in late March to collect new media at Djolu Technical College and the surrounding area! Thank you again for being part of the CEP community, Ingrid The photo shows a technician installing a WiFi connection at the Daughters for Earth-funded regenerative agriculture training center in Kokolopori. Photo (c) Vie Sauvage #CongoEducationPartners #Congo #highereducation #regenerativeagriculture #educationalequity #Kokolopori #DRC

Dear friends, I want to express our gratitude to you for being there for Djolu Technical College during CEP's year-end fundraising season – and for our American donors, we hope you’re finding ways to resist the attacks on our democracy. Thanks to you, we raised $25,000 at year's end for Djolu professors’ salaries and women’s scholarships! In other news, CEP received its second $25,000 grant from Rick Steves Europe in December, for which we are very grateful. In addition, CEP’s Grants Team is hard at work writing other letters of inquiry and foundation grant proposals. We are also excited to report that CEP Advisor Pappy Orion, a gifted photographer and filmmaker, will travel to Djolu in late March to collect new media at Djolu Technical College and the surrounding area! Thank you again for being part of the CEP community, Ingrid The photo shows a technician installing a WiFi connection at the Daughters for Earth-funded regenerative agriculture training center in Kokolopori. Photo (c) Vie Sauvage #CongoEducationPartners #Congo #highereducation #regenerativeagriculture #educationalequity #Kokolopori #DRC

Saturday, March 8, is International Women’s Day – and at Congo Education Partners, the entire month of March is Women’s Future Month! All year long, CEP supports science education for young people – both men and women – through our partnership with Djolu Technical College, the only college in a rainforest region the size of England that teaches nursing and environmental and agriculture sciences. We believe that everyone should have access to the education they need to achieve their dreams – and women in the Congo rainforest face many more barriers to attending college than men do.?Such barriers include cultural norms, family expectations, and financial challenges. By supporting women’s scholarships to Djolu Technical College (DTC), you can help eliminate the financial challenges that women face. This month, we invite you to join us in helping young Congolese women achieve their dreams.?$500 can fund a one-year DTC scholarship for a woman student, but gifts of any size are helpful!?https://lnkd.in/eAngeaQh Thank you for helping make the world a better place! ? Photos of an International Women’s Day parade in Djolu ? Janet Nackoney. #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2025 #congoeducationpartners #congorainforest #educationalequity #equalopportunity #womenleadership

Friday, February 14, is Valentine’s Day and World Bonobo Day. Frans de Waal, the eminent primatologist, spent his life studying bonobos and chimpanzees and the origins of moral behavior. He was also an eminently quotable man. Here’s one of our favorites: “The sturdiest pillars of human morality are compassion and a sense of justice.” Fighting injustice in the world requires compassion and courage. Wishing you - and all of us - compassion, a powerful sense of justice, and the courage to do the right thing. For more of de Waal’s wisdom, see Goodreads. Photo (c) Nahoko Tokuyama #WorldBonoboDay?#ValentinesDay?#Congo

Friday, February 14, is Valentine’s Day and World Bonobo Day. Frans de Waal, the eminent primatologist, spent his life studying bonobos and chimpanzees and the origins of moral behavior. He was also an eminently quotable man. Here’s one of our favorites: “The sturdiest pillars of human morality are compassion and a sense of justice.” Fighting injustice in the world requires compassion and courage. Wishing you - and all of us - compassion, a powerful sense of justice, and the courage to do the right thing. For more of de Waal’s wisdom, see Goodreads. Photo (c) Nahoko Tokuyama #WorldBonoboDay?#ValentinesDay?#Congo

Supporting CEP means supporting sustainable, community-led rainforest conservation. It also means supporting Congolese women’s agency and leadership. The role of women in protecting the Congo rainforest is always crucial, but often forgotten. Women's knowledge, attitudes and practices are often complementary to those of men, but without higher education, women frequently go unheard. This is your opportunity to give women rainforest stewards in Congo a voice. Our Board has been matching gifts 1:1 and we’re happy to say that we are 3/4 of the way to our goal of raising $40,000 by the end of December! Here’s how you can help us reach our goal so more young women – like the secondary school students above – can attend Djolu Technical College: ? - Make a GIFT of any size? - Respond to this email to VOLUNTEER?or - SPREAD THE WORD about our work! https://lnkd.in/dyMetvqJ ?? With deep gratitude from all of us at Congo Education Partners! #CongoEducationPartners #DRCongo #Congorainforest #genderequity #educationalequity #conservation #sustainableagriculture #publichealth #DRC Photo of female students at the Djolu Technical College on-campus prep school (c) Pappy Orion.

Give a woman an education. Your gift matched 1:1! Guylaine Lokuli (on the left) has a special interest in forest conservation and just finished her first year of studies in Environment and Sustainable Development at Djolu Technical College (DTC). Every year, there are smart, motivated young women in Djolu Territory who would like to attend college – and thanks to your continued support, Guylaine, Sarah, and other women like her have been able to obtain scholarships to study at DTC. Some of these DTC graduates have gone on to get their bachelor’s degrees and are ready to study for a master’s degree when a scholarship becomes available. The CEP Board is currently matching your gift 1:1 up to $20,000 total. https://lnkd.in/dyMetvqJ A three-year associate’s degree at DTC costs only $1500, and CEP has 19 more women currently in the queue to attend DTC.?Without the generosity of donors like you, these women could not afford to attend college. In the Djolu region, only about one in 500 people has any college education. Of the people who do study for a post-secondary degree, 75% are men. Yet for women like Guylaine and Sarah, a college degree is especially important to be accepted as a local leader or technical expert. To continue helping women in Djolu Territory protect the biodiversity of their rainforest, educate their peers about regenerative agriculture, or provide health care for their communities, we urge you to consider donating to CEP. ? ?$1500 can help fund a full DTC scholarship ?$500 can help fund a one year DTC scholarship ?$300 can help support Women’s Committee activities ?$120 can help fund a research stipend for a third year student Thank you for your continued generosity! With gratitude from the CEP Board ? ?P.S. Your gift helps change the world for the better by furthering women’s education and leadership in the Congo rainforest! #CongoEducationPartners #genderequity #educationalequity #conservation #sustainableagriculture #publichealth #Congorainforest #regenerativeagriculture #Kokolopori #congobasinrainforest #DRC #DRCongo Photos of Guylaine and Sarah (c) Vie Sauvage

You’re the reason that CEP has been able to support, sustain and grow Djolu Technical College! Here are some of the accomplishments you have enabled this year: - DTC faculty have taught 4500 hours in three majors to 127 students - 44 students, including 8 women, graduated in October with diplomas in water and forest science, nursing and public health, and environment and sustainable development - 6 women students have received full scholarships from CEP -17 DTC students did internships in forest science at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve - DTC established a new regenerative agriculture training center at the Kokolopori Reserve - and CEP has received three new foundation grants. None of this would have been possible without you! During this giving season, we urge you to consider a generous gift to Congo Education Partners. Our goal is to raise $40,000 by the end of December. These funds will help support women’s scholarships and professors’ salaries in 2025.? https://lnkd.in/dyMetvqJ We thank you for your partnership with CEP.?Together, we can help Djolu Technical College develop local expertise and strategies for improving people’s lives and protecting Congo's rainforest and wildlife! #CongoEducationPartners #Kokolopori #educationalequity #genderequity #conservation #sustainableagriculture #DRC #congorainforest #congobasinrainforest #DRCongo

You help protect bonobos Your gift to Congo Education Partners directly helps Djolu Technical College and its graduates protect bonobos in the wild. Do you know why? Because DTC is managed by the same organization, Vie Sauvage, that manages the Kololopori Bonobo Nature Reserve. And much of what DTC students learn in the classroom is applied at the Kokolopori Reserve. Here are a few examples: Each year, DTC students do internships with the Harvard University bonobo project at the Reserve DTC’s regenerative agriculture project, which we wrote about last week, will reduce expansion of farmers’ fields into the Kokolopori forest And access to health care provided by DTC-trained nurses helps keep conservationists strong. We thank you for your partnership in supporting Djolu Technical College and its important projects! https://lnkd.in/dyMetvqJ #CongoEducationPartners #Kokolopori #educationalequity #genderequity #bonobos #conservation #sustainableagriculture #DRC #congorainforest #congobasinrainforest Internship photos (c) Vie Sauvage: Niki Agboi, the Kokolopori site manager of the Harvard bonobo project, teaches interns about line transects and using a Bushnell trail camera.?Bonobo photo (c) Janet Nackoney

Djolu Technical College is introducing farmers living in the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve to regenerative agriculture practices! The first step is to establish a Pilot Training Center - and women farmers, who do much of the agricultural labor, are the primary target audience. In many tropical forests of the world, subsistence farmers use slash-and-burn agriculture to overcome the low nutrient levels of rainforest soils. Tshuapa Province is no exception. This approach worked for millennia when human population densities were low, but it is no longer viable today. Regenerative agriculture, in contrast, is a restorative form of farming that promotes biodiversity conservation with a focus on healthy, living soils. Key principles include building soil health and fertility through cover cropping and crop rotation. Use of agroforestry principles and more efficient water management systems is also important. Education, financial support, and provision of seeds of legumes and other improved crop varieties (e.g., cocoa and coffee) are crucial to encouraging a transition to regenerative agriculture in Kokolopori. The Pilot Training Center has a two-hectare field that will serve as a model for farmers to replicate, and a nursery of peas and soybeans for soil cover as well as coffee and cacao seedlings. One objective is to encourage farmers to intensify farming on their plots of land by rotating cereals such as rice and maize with legumes such as peas and soybeans. The same plots will also be used for multi-story cultivation of fruit, coffee and cacao trees. Funding for building the Kokolopori Pilot Training Center was provided by Daughters for Earth and One Earth. Regenerative agriculture increases the ability of local farmers to help protect the rainforest, enhance biodiversity, and ensure their own long-term food security. Photos (c) Vie Sauvage. All photos taken at Kokolopori except the 4th one, taken at Yangambi, DRC. #CongoEducationPartners #Kokolopori #regenerativeagriculture #sustainableagriculture #biodiversity #congorainforest #genderequity #EducationalEquity #DRC #DRCongo