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The Quiet Resistance Bureau | From Survival To Governance
Liberata Rubumba Buratwa, 63, peace mediator and President of the Network of Women Ambassadors and Peace Mediators, works at her desk at the PACOFEDI offices in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on April 16, 2026. In a sparse room its green walls bare, its shelves lined with carefully archived files representing years of community interventions Rubumba embodies the quiet, determined persistence of grassroots women's leadership in a region where institutional support remains chronically insufficient. A former territorial administrator turned civil society leader, she has dedicated her life to supporting survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, promoting education for girls, and weaving back together communities fractured by decades of armed conflict. As international peace negotiations for eastern DRC proceed at the regional level, the offices of women like Rubumba remain among the most vital and most underfunded spaces of peacebuilding on the ground.
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The Gaze That Does Not Bend | From Survival To Governance
Liberata Rubumba Buratwa, 63, peace mediator, community leader, and President of the Network of Women Ambassadors and Peace Mediators in Rutshuru, North Kivu, is photographed at her office in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on April 16, 2026. Her steady, unflinching gaze lined by decades of witnessing displacement, violence, and loss in one of the world's most protracted conflict zones carries the weight of a life given entirely to the service of others. A former territorial administrator who chose to remain and rebuild rather than flee, Rubumba has spent more than two decades supporting vulnerable women and children through PACOFEDI, mediating between communities torn apart by armed group activity, and insisting against all odds that peace in Rutshuru is not only necessary but possible. In a region where an estimated seven million people remain internally displaced and where women continue to bear the heaviest burden of conflict, her presence at that desk, every day, is itself an act of extraordinary resistance.
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The Hands That Build Peace | From Survival To Governance
Members of FUDEI (Femmes Unies pour le Développement Endogène et Intégral), the women's organization led by coordinator Rachel Malulu, plant trees along a street median in Goma, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on February 21, 2026. Under Malulu's leadership, FUDEI has pioneered a unique model of community peacebuilding that is both literal and symbolic transforming neglected urban spaces into living green corridors that restore public health, community cohesion, and collective pride in a city that has endured decades of armed conflict, volcanic eruptions, and mass displacement. As international negotiations over the future of eastern DRC continue to stall and restart, initiatives like this one remind the world that peace in Goma is already being built quietly, stubbornly, by women with shovels in their hands.
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Digging for Tomorrow | From Survival To Governance
A woman affiliated with FUDEI, the organization coordinated by Rachel Malulu, works the soil along a street median during a community reforestation activity in Goma, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on February 21, 2026. Against a wide open sky, her powerful stance with a hoe digging into volcanic earth in a city that has known too much destruction embodies the philosophy that drives Malulu's work: that rebuilding the environment and rebuilding society are inseparable struggles, and that women are their most reliable architects. In a region where the humanitarian crisis has displaced millions and eroded trust between communities, each tree planted by FUDEI members is both an ecological act and a declaration of intent that the women of Goma choose life, growth, and the future over the despair of war.
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Sowing Cohesion | From Survival To Governance
Portrait of Rachel Malulu coordinator of FUDEI (Femmes Unies pour le Développement Endogène et Intégral), plant and water seedlings along a street median in Goma, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on February 21, 2026. A representative of UWEMA Asbl DRC "La Voix de l'Espoir" is visible in the background, reflecting the collaborative spirit that defines grassroots peacebuilding in North Kivu, where civil society organizations pool their limited resources to create visible, tangible change. For Malulu, the act of women kneeling together in the soil of Goma's streets watering, planting, tending carries a meaning that extends far beyond horticulture: it is a reclaiming of public space, a restoration of dignity, and a message to a conflict-weary city that its women refuse to surrender its streets to violence and neglect.
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Rachel MALULU | From Survival To Governance
Rachel Malulu, coordinator of FUDEI (Femmes Unies pour le Développement Endogène et Intégral), speaks passionately at her office in Goma, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on March 9, 2026. Behind her, certificates of recognition including a Trophée International des Excellences de la RDC and a FUDEI distinction line the shelves alongside stacks of organizational archives, bearing silent witness to over two decades of community-driven work in one of the world's most volatile regions. Wearing a Forum Provincial des Jeunes Filles sur le Leadership Féminin T-shirt, Malulu speaks with the urgency of someone who knows that the window for peace is always fragile, always contested. Her conviction that peace must be visible, tangible, and rooted in the communities where people actually live has made FUDEI one of Goma's most distinctive voices for women's empowerment and environmental peacebuilding at a time when the city's future remains deeply uncertain.