School “Collège C. Jean”
HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL
The school Collège C.JEAN was founded about 25 years ago by Rex Monteng Mupepe. It is located in Masina, a neighborhood of Congo’s capital Kinshasa. This is about 10km from the city center.
It was the poor living conditions of the local population that prompted him to take this step. Every day one encounters great suffering there: unemployed parents, poor pay for the few working parents and a high number of students whose parents have died of AIDS, because of natural disasters, etc.. He therefore decided to build a school for all these children, to offer them a safe place instead of leaving them to fend for themselves on the streets. Personally, school education was always a matter close to his heart, because he knew that a good education was the only way out of the vicious circle of the poverty spiral.
With rather limited financial means, three school buildings were built. The land for this was made available to him free of charge by the owner.
The best legacy you can give your children is education. No one can take that away from them.
Rex Mupepe always had a heart for school education, that’s why he founded the school «Collège C. Jean» more than 25 years ago and worked as a school director with heart and soul for many years.
DILAPIDATION OF THE OLD SCHOOL
These buildings have now become dilapidated and can no longer withstand the bad weather. It urgently needs renovation.
These pictures speak for themselves and clearly show the need for action.
During a visit to this school in 2019, we (Enock and Elda Mupepe) were asked to help by telling many people in Switzerland about the dilapidated school so that it can be renovated.
DECISION ON THE NEW CONSTRUCTION OF THE SCHOOL
Then, at the end of 2020, we received the news that the owner of the land would like to use the land for his own use after all these years and that the school would have to leave the school grounds by the end of 2021. He had made his land available free of charge all these years and his claim is quite understandable given the increasingly difficult economic situation.
For us, however, it was then clear that we now had to do something! We absolutely wanted to prevent that the children would be deprived of this school and that the poverty spiral would go even further due to the lack of educational opportunities. The teachers would also lose their jobs and end up unemployed.
We therefore decided that we would buy a new plot of land and build the school from scratch. So, for this purpose, on 12.2.21, three of us (Elda Mupepe, Haniel and Pascale Liebi) founded an association with the name “GRADI Switzerland – Development Cooperation in the DR Congo”.
After several discussions, the owner has agreed for a deadline extension until July 2023, so that we have enough time to realize this new building project.
All details about the project can be found here: Project New Building