Hope For All is committed to justice…

While HFA Began as a humanitarian project, it has developed into an attempt at redistribution for equal opportunity.

The DRC, considered one of the poorest nations on earth in terms of infant mortality, malnutrition, and poverty, is simultaneously one of the richest nations on earth in terms of natural resource wealth. Congolese people have been robbed of their land and resources by colonial and capitalist violence over time. HFA stands for a future in which Congolese communities benefit from the riches of their land, and sees redistributing funding from the Western world towards some of the most vulnerable members of Congolese society; orphaned children, as a means of empowering Congolese communities.

With these beliefs in mind, HFA aims to follow community direction for funding, act as consistent and sustainable support to our orphanage partner, and follow the lead of Congolese leaders fighting for a more equal tomorrow.

Poverty is the direct result of historical and political factors, and therefore, poverty-reduction is a project of justice. 

Poverty in the DRC is deeply rooted in the effects of colonialism and extractive capitalism. Belgian colonial rule in the DRC ended less than seventy years ago; in 1960. Unimaginable violence was committed against Congolese people during this colonial period in order to extract labor and resources from the country. It is estimated that approximately ten million people (nearly half of the Congolese population at the time) were killed by extractive labor practices in the first twenty years of this colonial period (Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 1998). The extractive infrastructure set up during this time was taken over by Western mining companies throughout the early 2000s, which was accompanied by private interests intentionally destabilizing the Congolese government in order to continue extractive practices. This history has prevented the Congolese people at large from benefitting from their own natural resources, and has fueled years of mineral-related conflict and human rights abuses in the region. Understanding the extractive and exploitative history that contextualizes the DRC’s poverty, it is only just that those with means around the globe, especially means tied to extractive Western economies, redistribute those means towards those affected by this poverty. Specifically, supporting one of the most vulnerable populations affected by this poverty; orphaned children, through the generosity of donors across the globe, is how HFA aims to support reparative justice. 

For more context on the DRC’s history, consider reading Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara, or Environmentalism’s Colonial Resource Curse: Lasting impacts of colonialism in the DRC’s mining sector and the green transition as an opportunity for change, a thesis presented by HFA’s founder, Sophia Gustafson.