Sharing Our Stories
A group interested in restoring a sense of connection and fraternity between the people of the Congo and those residing in the West
We began our journey as a collective of like-minded Congolese youth who wanted to bring about a sense of unity to our community. Our mission and vision were centred around changing the often-negative narrative often associated with our community. We strive to accomplish this by “Sharing our Stories”. This to us meant being accessible and vulnerable.
Our first steps were starting mentorship programs for our youth, sharing our people’s history and our stories on social media platforms and planning community events. We officially registered our organization as a not-for-profit and began operating in October of 2014.
Since starting this initiative, we have had success in maintaining youth programs and reaching the community through our events. We are encouraged by that, but we are also humbled and motivated by our failures. We have grown in our leadership capacity and seek to always learn.
Thus far we have learned the value of diversity and the importance of respectfully including others. We have also learned to advocate for ourselves and to help others find their voice. We plan to continue with our core programs and also place youth in positions of influence within our organization so that we continue to evolve. We also hope to leverage our accumulated knowledge and share it as a resource to the community and other organizations that would be interested in hearing from us.