When conflict engulfed eastern Congo, people fled where they could. As the fighting spread through 2025, hundreds of thousands of Congolese crossed into neighboring Burundi, many on foot or in makeshift boats across the Rusizi River. Most arrived with nothing. About half were children.
Lens on Life started in Goma. When the conflict scattered our students and their neighbors across the border, some of our Congolese staff came across too and helped build a program in Bujumbura. It runs in partnership with CAMME and brings both communities into the same classrooms: Congolese who fled the fighting, and Burundians from the towns now hosting them. Local Burundians teach as well as learn, alongside the Congolese instructors. The training is the same work we have always done, photography and digital literacy, and the start of a skill young people can carry forward.
The students come from both sides of the border. Some lost their homes and carried what they could; others opened their town to people who did. A camera gives all of them a way to tell the story of what they are living now, and a skill they can work with wherever they go.
