Conflict Minerals Campaign
Let the people of Congo (DRC) benefit from their mineral wealth
We are a mainly Quaker group of people some of whom come from DRC and now live in the UK, some of whom live in the DRC, and some of whom are native British. We mainly meet by Zoom. We are concerned about the injustice whereby the people of the DRC are amongst the poorest in the world, despite the fact that the rest of the world is enjoying huge amounts of minerals from the DRC, and western multinational mining companies and a small minority within the DRC have become extremely rich from Congo’s minerals.
Our members in DRC visit mining sites to get to know what is happening there and keep us informed, by producing reports, as well as informally through Zoom meetings, phone calls and emails. They organise meetings of the different groups in the mining areas – representatives of companies, artisanal miners, local authorities, local people, NGOs etc, where they discuss problems and try to resolve them and find a peaceful way forward. They teach the people about their rights, in particular the Mining Code, and what mining companies are required to do to help the local community. They set up and support local CMC groups in the mining areas. They have radio broadcasts to help local people know and stand up for their legal rights and where topics relating to mining are discussed.
Our work in the UK is greatly helped by strong contacts with those in the DRC. We are concerned about the transition to electrical vehicles etc, which will lead to a massive increase in the demand for certain minerals, and try to ensure that the needs of the Congolese people are not forgotten in this transition. We network with other groups working in the field, and respond to parliamentary enquiries etc. In 2025 we participated in a museum event on minerals in Manchester. We inform Quakers of our concern for DRC by our presence at Yearly Meeting, articles in The Friend and local newsletters, and Zoom Learning/Discussion Groups.
The militia M23 is now in control of some areas where we work, others are being fought over between the Congolese government troops and M23, but we find that it is still possible to continue our work, though with some limitations. We are very concerned for our friends in DRC, and others in the area, whether displaced by violence or remaining but facing insecurity and big increases in the cost of food and other basics. We support Quaker Congo Partnership UK, which works to raise money for Quakers and others suffering the effects of violence in their home areas, or displaced and living in camps.
Conflict Minerals Campaign is a Quaker Recognised Body.
elizcol@dialstart.net
07969 385080
(amended January 2026)
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Peacebuilding in East Africa
Quakers in Britain work together with local partners in Rwanda, Kenya and Burundi to build a positive, nonviolent grassroots peace movement. The Turning the Tide East Africa programme helps local activists to stand up for social justice and peace.
Quakers in Britain partners with the Africa Center for Nonviolence & Sustainable Impact (AfriNov), Rwanda Yearly Meeting, and the Ministry for Peace and Reconciliation under the Cross (MIPAREC).
Our partners in East Africa deliver locally driven projects organised by community-based volunteers and trainers. The approach was adapted from the Quaker nonviolent training programme, Turning the Tide.
For more information about this work please visit: https://www.quaker.org.uk/action/peacebuilding-and-nonviolence/east-africa or email qpsw@quaker.org.uk
(amended January 2026)
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Rwanda
Forward Africa Education Trust
We believe education is central to expanding opportunity and shaping long-term life outcomes. To advance its objective of increasing access to schooling for disadvantaged young people—particularly girls—Forward Africa Education Trust works in partnership with Rwanda Yearly Meeting, George Fox School in Kigali, and the Rwandan Friends Career Center.
With the support of donors, the Trust has broadened its work beyond secondary school sponsorship. Its programmes now also focus on supporting young women to develop sustainable business enterprises and enabling women with disabilities to improve their livelihoods through horticulture-based initiatives.
SheCreates
A 12-month fellowship for 20 Rwandan women aged 18–30. The programme provides practical skills training, mentoring, leadership development, and seed funding to support the creation of socially impactful businesses. It addresses youth unemployment by promoting entrepreneurship in sectors including tourism, agriculture, health, and digital inclusion, enabling participants to become job creators and contribute to Rwanda’s social and economic development.
Women with Disabilities – Horticulture
The Trust supports the economic empowerment of women with disabilities through group-based horticultural farming. The programme aims to improve household food security and nutritional outcomes, while also strengthening participants’ cooperative governance and leadership capabilities.
Workshops, Mentorship, and Alumni
Forward Africa Education Trust continues to deliver its annual four-day Quaker workshops and will run its fifth mentorship programme this year. All students join the alumni network upon completing their education, providing ongoing peer support and encouraging graduates to contribute positively to their communities.
Forward Africa Education Trust is a Quaker Recognised Body.
www.forwardafricaeducation.org.uk
steve@forwardafricaeducation.org.uk
(amended January 2026)
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Eastern DRC
Quaker Congo Partnership (QCP)
Quaker Congo Partnership UK (QCP) is a partnership between British Quakers and CEEACO, the yearly meeting of Quakers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. This is an area which has suffered from years of civil war and as we write (February 2025) is once again in the grip of bands of armed militia. There is poor health including currently malnutrition and malaria, many children especially girls do not stay long at school. There is a lack of infrastructure and there are high levels of sexual violence.
The QCP projects focus on the population of Abeka on the edge of Lake Tanganyika, villages nearby, communities in the middle and high plateau, and in the town of Uvira.
The work of the projects aims to improve health, to build peace and prevent conflictand to enhance skills and capacity of women and young people. The three core projects are:
- Hospital care at the Centre Hopitalier d’Abeka (CHA) and prevention of poor health
- Peace building, education, counselling, training and support within the Centre for Education Peace and Psychological support (CEPAP) including development of youth peace committees and prevention of sexual violence and forced marriage through clubs in schools. Supporting young women to train as teachers and combatting attacks on people assumed to be witches.
- Association of Women’s Integral Development (AWID) which aims to improve women’s livelihood through seed grants, training and teaching of literacy and numeracy. Current projects include agriculture, juice making, tailoring and soap making.
QCP UK funding in 2015 brought clean running water to the hospital and village of Abeka. A follow up project to bring clean water to nearby Mukwezi is currently in progress and going well.
The three-year partnership agreement with CEEACO was renewed in March 2022 and is under review for renewal for the next 3 years. There is an aspiration on both sides that CEEACO can make more funding applications on their own behalf and develop further their project management capacity. We seek to reflect Quaker Africa Interest Group’s effort for making redress for historic injustice and colonialism.
QCP both in UK and in DRC has links with Conflict Minerals Campaign which is working to raise awareness about the issue of local people not benefitting from the potential wealth from the mining of minerals.
QCP is a Quaker Recognised Body
Facebook: Quaker Congo Partnership
(last revised February 2025)
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Consortium of African Great Lakes Region
The Consortium of the Africa Great Lakes Region is made up of eleven local non-profit organizations, involving local Quakers, working to support vulnerable victims of armed conflict and natural disasters. These organizations contribute to the socio-economic recovery and self-reliance of vulnerable groups, including orphaned children, women survivors of sexual violence, widows, people with disabilities, refugees, internally displaced persons, and flood victims.
The Consortium’s areas of intervention are:
Peace and conflict resolution, Education, Health and Nutrition, Trauma healing, Youth promotion, Protection and Food security:
134 children from primary and secondary school received school supplies to start the new 2025-2026 school year.
Four workshops on capacity building for young and women leaders on inheritance rights and peaceful coexistence was held in Uvira/ DR Congo.
84 people participated, including 40 women, girls, and 44 young boys and men.
An awareness session involving students, their parents and the community, in order to promote reproductive health, education and social cohesion. There were approximately 500 participants, including students, parents, men and women from the community, community health workers, and local authorities.
Fifteen single mothers are benefiting from the second phase of tailoring and sewing training as part of the socio-economic reintegration of traumatized individuals in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. We started these activities at the beginning of June in Bukavu, despite the area being occupied by rebels M23.
Widowed women in Burundi are benefiting from microfinance to develop their families through the ” Baho Project: Be There.” Currently, five women have been added to the list of beneficiaries of this project. Currently, 45 widowed women are benefiting from this project.
Seventy-five Burundian refugee women are receiving microfinance to improve their socio-economic conditions in Baraka, Democratic Republic of Congo. We are gradually increasing the number of beneficiaries as funds become available. We added 5 women from our database every quarter. This project began in 2023.
Four workshops raising awareness about gender-based violence was held in Baraka, with 140 participants, including community health workers and women farmers. We recorded 32 cases of sexual violence from the village of Fizi over a eleven -month period. These individuals were seen by our psychologist and then transferred to Baraka Hospital for medical treatment.
With a climate of peace in Uvira, we decided to resume the seed multiplication project in Uvira/ Kahorohoro .
https://www.copgla.org/contact
(amended February 2026)
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Uganda
Friends Community Development Trust (Uganda)
Friends Community Development Trust (Uganda) is a charity that supports the community in the parish of Butta, Manafwa district, eastern Uganda. We fund the construction of tangible assets owned by and managed by the community, projects which must be sustainable within the community. We are supporters of their ideas, rather than being proposers of them. We have funded the construction of a Secondary School and of a Health Centre and, most recently, a borehole and pump so that the community can access clean and healthy water.
The photos show Bishop Samuel Wabulakha, retired Bishop of Mbale, formally inaugurating the new pump for Butta by drawing a glass of water and drinking. In the background is the Health Centre and, to the right, the school classrooms we funded.
FCDT is a Quaker Recognised Body.
(amended January 2026)
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Uganda
The Hope Project (UK)
The Hope Project began working in the Kasese District in Western Uganda in 1998, focusing on landmine awareness (a programme which contributed to Uganda’s being declared mines-free in 2023), community development, conflict resolution, and adult literacy and nursery education in the high mountain villages. Our group of five schools are continuing to flourish and grow, though we ceased raising funds for them in 2025. Our other main partners in the past, Rwenzori Peace Bridge of Reconciliation, continues to support local peace groups and monitor elections.
Since 2018 we have been running a programme to teach women and girls to make and use reusable sanitary pads, with a strong positive response in villages and schools. In 2025 we appointed a local schools worker for a 12-month programme. But as the British Quakers involved grow older, the Hope Project is gradually ending active involvement in the region.
The photos show one of our nursery schools, and a club for disabled girls learning to make sanitary pads.
(amended February 2026)
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Uganda
Kahoda Support Group
Some Bedford Quakers began supporting Kahoda in December 2022 when we heard about the effects of floods and landslides in the Mbale area of Uganda, near the eastern border with Kenya. Children were left homeless and destitute, and a nursing student, Joshua, with a friend, had brought them into his local Quaker Church Meeting.
With good support and help from the local community, 150 children between the ages of 3 and 8 years, were given care and shelter. Since then the majority have been fostered in local families with support, leaving 30 boys and girls in residential care. Some of the total number now attend local schools. Childcare has been provided by the faithful work of the women in the community.
A small Bedford Kahoda Support Group of 5 people was formed for fundraising locally. Kahoda Disaster Response formed a committee of 5 under Mbale Quakers, and FWCC Africa Section was consulted. Getting to know them has been an enriching learning experience for us. Bedford Friends have sent donations to Kahoda for basic supplies monthly through Remitly, and the amount has risen gradually to £180 per month. For transparency, 4 people in both Bedford and Mbale committees are notified of the donations. The treasurer sends us details of how the money is spent. Bedford Quaker Local Meeting has supported Kahoda in applying to QPSW for two Simmons Grants of £1300 in 2023, and £2000 in 2025. The two grants were spent on teaching, bedding and furniture, then teaching, a reconditioned laptop and play equipment for the new play area.
More Recent Developments: the free building made available to Kahoda earlier was due to be reclaimed, leading to renewed fundraising efforts in UK and Uganda. 3/5 acre just outside Mbale was donated for a new building, and Bedford Friends raised £14,000 towards building costs. Local community members generously offered their skills and labour, and soon the building was taking shape.
Joshua moved to the UK and was able to contribute to the further £21,000 raised through hard work and fundraising in UK and Mbale. Regularly we have received reports of Kahoda’s progress with photos, and we expect another report soon. We await news of the readiness of the building for the children to move in, and a new chapter to begin.
Contact: Heather Mitchell email: heather.mitchell@phonecoop.coop mobile 07805833975
(Content added February 2026)
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Burundi
Voice of Hope
Voice of Hope Asbi is a Quaker inspired project based in Bujumbura, the economic capital of Burundi. It was founded in 2019 by a group of Congolese students as a non-profit association,was soon recognised by local Quaker organisations and given permission to work by the government of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
At the moment, (January 2026) they are focussed on four main projects. Firstly, on the schooling of thirty vulnerable orphan children, helping them to find foster homes, offering them offer financial support with food and stationery. Secondly, they support war widows by providing loans to set up small businesses so that they can support themselves. Thirdly they are setting up workshops for unemployed young people in an area where work is hard to find. Fourthly, in spite of local prejudice they also offer accommodation to seven gay Ugandan refugees.
[image to be supplied]
Contact: meamtreasurer@gmail.com
(Content added February 2026)
Quaker Africa Interest Group (QAIG) 
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