Beni & Goma · North Kivu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo

In eastern Congo, childhood is on the front line.

Scroll to see what changes that

The crisis

1,397

children were recruited by armed groups in the DRC in 2025, and those are only the cases the UN could verify.

UN Secretary-General, Children and Armed Conflict report, 2026

Our answer

So we opened a door.

A Center for Hope in Beni in 2020, then a second in Goma in 2025. Safety, meals, school and care, all run by a Congolese team.

Since March 2020

1,002

children reunited with their families.

  • 892 from Beni
  • 110 former child soldiers from Goma
  1. Eastern Congo
  2. The crisis
  3. Our answer
  4. Children home
  5. Their future

Who we are

A safe place to land, and a team that won't stop until they're home.

Fesser and Friends is a US nonprofit that runs two Centers for Hope in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, with our Congolese partner, World Hope Givers.

We reach children in the hours after an attack, when they have just lost their families and are most at risk of being taken by an armed group, a trafficker or an exploiter. We give them safety, food, school and care. Then we do the hardest and most important part: find their families and reunify them.

Our story How we work
Two children smiling, one holding a teddy bear and a book

Two Centers for Hope

One mission, two of the hardest places on earth to be a child.

Children and staff at the Beni Center for Hope pulling faces with fake mustaches

Opened March 2020

Beni Center for Hope

Prevention before recruitment

Girls and boys orphaned or separated by armed attacks, aged 4–17.

Reunified
892
In care now
25
Girls in care
~50%
Inside the Beni center
Boys and staff at the Goma Center for Hope making heart shapes in front of a wall of painted handprints

Opened May 2025

Goma Center for Hope

Long-stay rehabilitation for former child soldiers

Boys aged 8–17 formerly associated with armed groups, or at the greatest risk of recruitment.

Reunified
110
In care now
27
Inside the Goma center

Our impact

Every number is a child whose name we protect.

We publish our reunification figures and update them as children go home. More than a third of the children reunified from Beni are girls, who are often the most at risk of exploitation.

children reunited with their families since 2020, across our two centers in Beni and Goma
1,002
local Congolese staff
20+
children in our care right now
52
Explore our impact & accountability
Children reunified with their families each year, 2020–2026 1,002 children in total. Yearly totals: 2020: 21, 2021: 53, 2022: 65, 2023: 195, 2024: 170, 2025: 350, 2026: 148. 0 100 200 300 400 21 2020 53 2021 65 2022 195 2023 170 2024 350 2025 148 2026*
*2026 figures are year to date. Goma opened in 2025 with a large emergency intake of former child soldiers. Source: Fesser and Friends reunification tracker, updated October 2026.
The World Hope Givers field team in protective vests

Locally led

Congolese people know what Congolese children need.

Every one of our staff is Congolese, hired locally and paid above the national average with no gender pay gap. Our partner World Hope Givers runs operations on the ground. Children study in local schools (and, while Ebola is circulating, in our own on-site classrooms), and we buy from local businesses.

“This place is the last resort. Without us, I'm not sure these kids would still be here today.”

Freddy Moise, Site Director, Beni Center for Hope
  • Registered 501(c)(3)US public charity · EIN 86-2234262
  • Candid Platinum SealTop transparency rating, 2026
  • Government partnerFive-year protocol with DIVAS Beni, 2026–2031
  • Independently reviewedUniversity of Washington due-diligence review, 2026

Where it began

“Please do not forget about us.”

In 2019, at the end of his first year of medical school, Nicolas Fesser spent eight weeks volunteering in the Ebola camps in North Kivu, during one of the largest Ebola outbreaks ever recorded. He came home with a phone full of messages from friends, as attacks on the towns he had worked in grew worse. A few months later, with Alain Bayongwa and a local team, the first Center for Hope opened its doors.

Read our story
Dr. Nicolas Fesser in front of a wall of children's painted handprints