Malaika: A Nonprofit Girls' School in Congo That Rises Above the Odds

by Rebecca Anne Proctor

Malaika: A Nonprofit Girls' School in Congo That Rises Above the Odds

30 Sept 2024

Dozens of families in elaborately patterned and vibrantly coloured attire eagerly gathered on August 20 seated on chairs positioned amid the dust-filled grounds of Malaika, a nonprofit school for girls in the impoverished village of Kalebuka in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Founded in 2007 by Congolese-Cypriot Noëlla Coursaris Musunka, an international model and philanthropist, now based between Dubai and London, the school has become a life-changing force and means of hope within the surrounding community.

Among the crowd were a few international visitors, donors, and local Congolese businessmen and politicians. All were there to attend Malaika’s class of ’24’s high school graduation, marking the graduation of 25 girls and the school’s second high school graduation.

In Kalebuka, there is no electricity, internet, tarred roads, or modern hospital. When Malaika was first established, there were also no water wells. Farming is the main economic activity in the area. Despite such limitations, Malaika has gone against the odds to provide young Congolese women with an education while also giving back to the local community.

Each day the Malaika school opens its doors to 430 girls from the surrounding areas, offering a free, accredited primary and secondary education, with subjects ranging from art, music, theater, sports, science, math and technology. It also offers the students two nutritious meals per day.

Dr. Phumla Makaziwe Mandela

The crowd, watching attentively, often moved to tears as Malaika students danced, sang and presented what they were learning from courses in English, science and computer science.

“I am in awe of what is happening here,” said Malaika’s class of ’24 President and keynote speaker Dr. Phumla Makaziwe Mandela, the daughter of the late Nelson Mandela and a lifelong advocate for social justice. “Never, never in my wildest dreams did I think that there is a young daughter from Africa who would have all the privileges that the Western world has to offer but not a single day forget where she comes from, come home and start a school for the poor and the indigent, pay for everything; raise money to pay for school fees, for uniforms and realise that the children who come to this school even at a young age of five years old are malnourished and because they are malnourished they cannot cope with education, and arrange for those children to be fed on a daily basis to have two meals a day.”

This year’s high school graduation was built on the success of Malaika’s inaugural commemoration in 2023. It marked the graduation of 17 girls studying at the school for the past 12 years. International hip-hop star and actress Eve Jeffers-Cooper was the President and keynote speaker for the class.

“The world we live in, my children, is a very difficult world,” continued Mandela. “You’ve grown up in difficult circumstances. You have poverty all around you. Yet despite these challenges and all the odds, you still managed to graduate from Malaika with confidence, courage and bravery. Congratulations.”

Musunka said all 17 graduates from last year are studying at university, and a number have even received scholarships to study abroad. This year’s cohort of graduates is similarly pursuing university studies in the DRC and abroad through scholarship programs.

Since Malaika’s establishment, the school has entirely transformed the village of Kalebuka. When the school was first established, it had no water wells. Today, it has 31 wells that supply fresh, clean water to over 36,000 people in the vicinity. The Malaika Community Center offers informal education and a technical program powered by the Caterpillar Foundation that trains and certifies future electricians and mechanics.

Additionally, Malaika's Kalebuka Football for Hope Center, located in the Community Center, built in collaboration with FIFA and streetfootballworld, provides an area for youth and adults who otherwise may not have had the opportunity to learn to read and write, take vocational courses entirely free of charge. There’s also a soccer field where men and women can play.

While poverty and socio-economic hardship persist in the village of Kalebuka, today, Malaika has gone beyond the mission of a school and has become a fully-fledged ecosystem that is transforming an entire community in the DRC. It has become a life force and means of hope within the community.

Each year, an increasing number of international donors give to Malaika to support its cause of empowering women in the DRC and giving back to the local Kalebuka community through education, art, sports and awareness about health and wellbeing.

An example of this is the Malaika Community Center, which offers life-changing community programs to 6,000 youth and adults each year and is home to a technical program (supported by the Caterpillar Foundation) that trains and certifies future electricians and mechanics. Additionally, Malaika’s clean water program caters to over 35,000 people each year through the building and refurbishment of 31 wells, and the agriculture program helps feed students and staff two nutritious meals each day. All these services are provided free of charge.

“What is different about Malaika is that it is really an ecosystem now,” Musunka adds. “You have the school, water wells, agriculture, sports, vocational training, art, electricity and literacy programs.”

What inspired Musunka to establish Malaika? After witnessing firsthand the poverty and lack of opportunity for women in the DRC, Musunka was empowered to give back.

Musunka was born in Lubumbashi to a Congolese mother and a Cypriot father. When she was only five years old, her father died. Due to a lack of means, Musunka’s mother sent her to Europe to be raised by relatives. She lived in Belgium and later Switzerland and began modelling as a teenager. Her dream was always to give back to the DRC in some way. Nearly 20 years ago, the dream was realised when she established the nonprofit Georges Malaika Foundation, named in memory of her father, Georges, to provide girls in the DRC with the same opportunities she had when growing up abroad.

Students and Noëlla Coursaris Musunka

“In a region that is in the heart of a thriving mineral mining sector, conflicts have caused havoc and destruction in the DRC for generations, severely damaging its infrastructure, including schools and vocational training centres,” shares Nöella. “Because of this, the Congolese people are often unable to secure the skills needed to enter the formal workplace.”

Students and Noëlla Coursaris Musunka

Malaika has been the recipient of several awards, including the 2023 award for Peace through Sport awarded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Managing the school and raising funding for it to continue is extremely challenging. Due to the ongoing conflicts in the Eastern part of the DRC, the country is often on the red list to receive aid. Some NGOs that work in Senegal, Kenya and Tanzania, for example, will receive more funding because the applications are open to them, explains Musunka.

Moreover, the DRC is around two-thirds the size of Western Europe and a lot of aid is needed.

“You have to fight sometimes and convince donors to take a risk to help,” she says, noting that what has helped the school are the visitors who come to Malaika and leave impressed and begin raising awareness about the school internationally.

“A lot of people come once to Malaika, and then they come back because it feels good to give and spend time with the girls and the community,” she adds.

Fighting for a dream to help others have a life she was privileged to have keeps Musunka steadfast in her mission.

“I had a very tough childhood, but it’s also what has kept me very determined and focused in everything I do,” said Musunka. “I have always been a very career-driven person. Before Malaika, Kalebuka was a forgotten village, a forgotten community. It was all bush, with no roads, no electricity, and no water. We have built the school step by step, all sustainably from the ground up.”

From a dream, Musunka created a reality. After girls leave school and go out into the world with opportunities provided by education, the responsibility to go on, as Musunka says, is on the girls themselves.

As Mandela stated: “The education you got here will open doors. But once the doors are open, you must prove you are worthy to walk through the halls of success.”

The key message, as Malaika instills in its students each year and one that can apply to everyone in the world, is to believe in yourself and have faith that you can do anything.

by Rebecca Anne Proctor