Congo Education Partners (CEP) was established in 2013 to build the capacity of Djolu Technical College (DTC). DTC is the only accredited higher education institution providing programs in agricultural and environmental science in Tshuapa Province, a remote and poverty-stricken region the size of England that encompasses vast swaths of intact rainforest. 

Founded and led by Congolese leaders, DTC is a regional center for excellence in education, research, and community outreach. Students research forest conservation, sustainable agriculture, nursing and public health.

CEP’s mission is to work with local communities to protect Congo's rainforest and improve people’s lives through higher education and training. Sixty percent of the Congo Basin Rainforest is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, so empowering local Congolese people – both women and men – to protect their forest is essential for the future of the world’s second largest rainforest.

For three years in a row, Planet Women has been able to offer grants to Congo Education Partners. This year, Planet Women’s grant funded DTC professors’ salaries and provided scholarships to women students. Both are key to increasing the number of local women professionals and environmental leaders in Tshuapa Province’s Congo Rainforest—a forest that is a trove of biodiversity and essential to stabilizing global climate change.

The CEP team shared: “We are especially grateful for the Planet Women grant at this time, since one impact of Congo’s nationwide academic reforms has been to raise the cost of educating students at Djolu. The reforms are much needed, but funding for DTC professors’ salaries is difficult to raise, since international grant funding tends to be more for field projects rather than local higher education.”

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