Notes from Goma and the communities around Virunga
Short, honest updates from program teams — what is working, what we are adjusting, and what a typical week actually looks like.
Miti Alliance: pupils plant the next generation of forest
At partner schools around Goma, the Miti Alliance programme turns a corner of the schoolyard into a working tree nursery — and turns pupils into the people who tend it.
The model is deliberately simple: pupils raise seedlings from seed, track their growth as part of a basic ecology curriculum, and eventually transplant them to degraded plots nominated by the community itself. Teachers report that the most enthusiastic participants are rarely the strongest students academically — tending a living seedling rewards a different kind of attention.
For ACV, the programme does double duty: it is an environmental-restoration activity and a youth-leadership one at the same time, which is exactly the kind of overlap our five-pillar model is designed to produce.
See the Education & Youth programmeRecent updates
Every story below links through to the program pillar it belongs to.
From one demonstration plot to a farmer-led extension network
How a single agro-ecology pilot grew into a peer-to-peer training network spanning three communities — without ACV staff present at every session.
Read the storyCommunity health volunteers close the last mile
Trained volunteers are carrying basic maternal and child health information directly to households between clinic visits — and reporting back what they hear.
Read the storyInside a savings cooperative meeting in Himbi
A look at how a rotating savings fund decides, week to week, which household enterprise gets the next round of capital.
Read the storyMapping the forest edge: a season with our community patrols
Community monitors are tracking encroachment along the Virunga boundary with little more than a notebook, a phone, and local knowledge.
Read the storyWhat a Youth Leadership Academy graduation actually looks like
Not a ceremony so much as a hand-off: each graduate leaves with a project already underway, not just a certificate.
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