Achievements & Project History
1. Environmental Education and Conservation
Since 2018, the year FADPE asbl. was founded, we’ve led awareness programs in schools and villages near Virunga National Park to protect both wild and domestic animals. These programs teach communities about animal rights, the importance of preserving habitats, and the need to stop poaching and deforestation.
Virunga faces complex challenges. Armed groups have taken refuge in parts of the park, creating insecurity and accelerating poaching, tree-cutting, and habitat loss. At the same time, many nearby families enter the park to collect wood for cooking and warmth, poach wild animals including endangered species, and carry out other survival activities, often because they have few other ways to earn a living. Over 3,000 people in Kibumba alone depend on Virunga National Park for daily survival, threatening its wild animals.
Through education and dialogue, FADPE helps communities understand how these pressures threaten wild animals and ecosystems, while exploring safer, sustainable alternatives (such as large-scale community gardens) for daily survival. Our awareness sessions also address the capture of primates and other animals kept in homes, encouraging residents to report such cases and work with sanctuaries like Senkwekwe and Lwiro to ensure animals can be safely rehabilitated.
2. Vegan Lifestyle Awareness
In 2021, FADPE launched education sessions in schools and villages to introduce the idea of vegan living which is still new in most of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
We talk openly about the suffering of farmed, domestic, and aquatic animals, and about how modern breeding and intensive farming bring new risks for animals, people, and the environment. We talk about how these practices damage the land and contribute to the spread of disease.
Our message has reached schoolchildren, youth, and adults across Goma and Nyiragongo.
3. Support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children
Launched in 2019, this program cares for children who lost parents to war and insecurity in North Kivu. Many come from Nyiragongo, one of the regions hardest hit by violence and displacement.
At the New Life Community Center / Caring for All Beings, FADPE provides plant-based meals, schooling, language lessons, and vocational training. The center now supports nearly 50 children, with about 15 living on site while others stay with foster families until more housing becomes available.
Every morning the children share porridge and doughnuts; at lunch and dinner they eat plant-based meals of beans, potatoes, rice, cabbage, carrots, and fruit. Beyond nutrition, they receive emotional support through songs, stories, and group activities that help them recover from loss and regain a sense of belonging.
When five children became seriously ill with malaria and diarrhea in 2021, FADPE worked with Les Voisins Medical Center, one of its local partners, to ensure treatment and recovery.
Our goal is to expand our facilities to include dormitories, a small health post, and training workshops in sewing, literacy, and art, so that every child has the support, skills, and sense of home they deserve.