According to a World Bank report: “educational quality has a strong causal impact on individual earnings and economic growth.” Sowers of Hope believes that for a region often plagued by disease, war, and famine; a generation of educated children is the DR Congo’s best hope for a better future. Our model is to provide schooling to children in the DR Congo through a model of local business to fund a self-sustainable education system. Many non-profits spend a lot of time on projects that are initially helpful but are quickly dismissed or go into disrepair because the local community cannot support them.

Since 2001 just under a thousand children have passed through our school. Our small space enclosed with a brick wall has, unfortunately, only three tiny classrooms, originally built as an appendage to a mechanics shop. These rooms barely fit the kindergarten to grade three students. Grades four and five are currently meeting in makeshift classrooms made out of bamboo walls and donated tarps used for the roof.

Our principal, along with her teachers, keeps meticulous records of students’ grades, accomplishments, and achievements. Our student body consists of 80% regularly enrolled students and 20% street children and war orphans. This mix gives the orphans and street children opportunities they would never have otherwise, and allows the regularly enrolled students a chance to mentor and train their less fortunate peers.