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CENEDI

Our Purpose

CENEDI, the Center for Mentoring Children in Difficulties, (Centre d'Encadrement des Enfants en Difficultés), exists to help vulnerable children, orphaned or otherwise destitute because of the wars in eastern Congo, to achieve an education. It also serves their communities, especially the women, to survive and find ways to thrive.

Our Story

CENEDI is a non governmental organization in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that was officially registered as such in 2006. CENEDI began as a grassroots organization comprised mostly of teachers and those working voluntarily to assist vulnerable children in the Uvira region of South Kivu province of the DRC. Like the rest of this region, both South and North Kivu had seen many years of conflict between militias in the borderlands of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Congo. The area was very unstable and suffered a breakdown of almost all social services, especially schools and hospitals. CENEDI initially provided education for children in the Uvira area, then expanded to Goma, in North Kivu. It has extended its services to the women in the communities from which the children came.

Nonprofit Leaders

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Innocent Nunda wa Nunda

Co-founder and Director

Innocent, a founding member of CENEDI, assumed the role of director in 2013 when the current director relocated to Goma and set up operations there. He is an ordained Quaker minister and has long been dedicated to the women and children in the Uvira area. He, his wife and eight children reside in Uvira, where his home serves as the office for CENEDI. He attended the university and holds a degree in business. Innocent has been working closely with Maman Monigue from FEBA to provide relief to women in the Uvira area where violence, rape and starvation are the daily story of life and death. He is responsible for arranging for an instructor from the Rwandan Quaker Peace Initiative to travel to Uvira and train Pembas Academy graduates sponsored by CENEDI as professional instructors of peace (Peace Ambassadors).

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Mulamba Jacques Shabani

Principal of Community Charity School, Goma Leader of CCS

Mulamba has devoted his life to vulnerable children in Goma. He served as a member/employee of the Norvegian Refugee Council charged with seeking peace and reconciliation for the vulnerable children in the Nyiragongo area of Congo. Prior becoming a member of CENEDI and taking on the role of Director Gestionnaire (Principal) of Community Charity School, he was active in several other charitable organizations in the Goma area. He is currently enrolled at the university in a program in community development, specializing in project management. A longtime resident of Goma, he is married with 7 children, one of them a recent graduate of CCS.

Bahininwa Saidia Valery

Co-founder and First Director

Bahininwa was raised in poverty in Congo and earned his way through school by working the fields in local farms and as a porter carrying luggage for tourists, completing his education through great personal sacrifice. Because of the hardships he faced, he organized a group in Munene and Kaboke (villages near Uvira) to assist poor and orphaned children, to insure that vulnerable students were safe and had the opportunity for education and did not suffer the hardships he did as a child. A cofounder of CENEDI, Mr. Saidia was deeply distressed about the situation of children living in the streets of Goma as a result of bombing from Rwanda. He relocated to Goma to establish Community Charity School, handing the directorship of CENEDI over to a longstanding member of the board, Innocent Nunda Wa Nunda. Bahininwa fell victim to poisoning in 2021 for his role in CENEDI and almost died so he was forced to retire.

Our Places

CENEDI is located in eastern Congo, along the Great Rift Valley with its deep lakes marking the borders with Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania. Goma is the capital of North Kivu Province, Uvira is a major city in South Kivu Province.

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CENEDI in Uvira has several projects in the city but its main work is in the villages of Munene and Kaboke just outside. Travel to the villages is very difficult by land, so it is sometimes easier for the administrator Innocent Nunda wa Nunda to take a canoe along Lake Tanganyika.

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