KINSHASA (May 9, 2026) — On a Saturday morning in a hall at Mazenod University in Kitambo, the first people to arrive open the windows and line up chairs.
Several wear white shirts with The Geneva Learning Foundation’s name on them.
132 Congolese Scholars had said they would come.
43 joined from Mbandaka, Kasumbalesa, Lubumbashi, Bukavu, and Kalemie.
On screen, colleagues from other countries wait too.
People join from Cameroon, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Benin, Chad, Togo, and Tanzania.
Patrice Bamulenga is one of the Foundation’s ambassadors for the Democratic Republic of Congo. He came up with the idea for this meeting. He is the first to take the microphone.
Who else stands at this crossing, between people from Kinshasa and people from other places?
Henri Stanley Nyafe is a nurse in Mbandaka.
Viviane Mukalay is a nurse at the Neema health center in the Sakania health zone, on the border with Zambia.
She joined from Kasumbalesa.
François Mufolo Balimumu spent twenty years at Sendwe Hospital in Lubumbashi. Then he went on missions with Médecins sans frontières and Alima.
This year, The Geneva Learning Foundation turns ten years old.
In Kinshasa, the Scholars from the DRC decided to celebrate what they simply call their ten years.
They reserved the hall, printed the shirts, and found a group of experts who agreed to come on a Saturday morning.
They put sign-up for the Foundation’s next program on malaria at the end.
Charlotte Mbuh, the Foundation’s programs director, joined from Ébolowa, Cameroon.
Reda Sadki, the founder, from Geneva.
Both listened for more than three hours before they spoke.
What one morning means in the hardest-hit country
The Democratic Republic of Congo has 12.6% of the world’s malaria cases, according to the World Health Organization. More than one in ten malaria deaths happen there.
It is the second hardest-hit country in the world, after Nigeria.
These numbers are not just background.
Each case means a family must pay for medicine, a test, a ride to the clinic, or go without a meal.
An organization that celebrates action in the field
At the opening, Charlotte Mbuh summed up what the morning should be. “Today is not a training. It is a celebration. We are celebrating ten years of peer learning, ten years of sharing what we know, ten years of making our services to communities better.”
She moved right into her next point. “Ten years is not the end. It is just a new chapter starting, and we want to start this new chapter with our malaria program, Turning the tide on malaria.”
The host, Papa Emmanuel Kibambe, a doctor at the Ministry of Health, set the tone. “Today is Saturday. Someone drops everything to come share what they know, and they do it for free. This is ours.”
Three experts agreed to come.
Dr Meshach Motombo, a malaria specialist.
Father Robert Bougard, a missionary priest, an ecologist, and head of the Laudato Si’ Movement in Congo.
Dr Léopold, director of continuing education at the health ministry.
No one came to promote a project.
No one came to pitch a product.
An organization that holds a celebration of its ten years and launches its next program on the same morning shows what it really is.
The Geneva Learning Foundation calls itself, in its founding documents, an organization of “doing.”
In Kinshasa, that celebration proved it.
Closing the gap between what we know and what we do
The science of malaria is known.
The medicines work.
Bed nets treated with insecticide work.
The R21 vaccine, added to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s vaccination schedule in October 2024 (WHO Africa, December 18, 2024), is rolling out step by step in pilot health zones in Central Kongo.
Guidelines exist.
Yet the country recorded nearly two million more cases between two years in a row.
The gap between what is written in plans and what happens in a health zone has a name: the “know-do gap.”
In Kitambo, on May 9, the Scholars from the Democratic Republic of Congo named it and described, in their own words, what it takes to close it.
Technical knowledge from the guidelines.
Local knowledge from communities.
Peer knowledge that flows when colleagues from another province tell how they did it.
Viviane Mukalay, a nurse in Sakania, talked about the moment her work changed.
“We used to stay at the clinic level. We did not think we needed to bring in community health workers and really work with the community. But when I came to the meeting here, I found the courage to go out to the community, to work with them, and to make decisions together, especially with the community health workers. When children miss their vaccination visits, we give their information to a community health worker who goes to their homes and brings them back. Because of that, the number of children who were not vaccinated and missed their first dose went down.”
Ms Mukalay’s degree, her protocols, her knowledge of medicines—none of it was enough on its own.
Her practice changed when the knowledge of community health workers, who knew the addresses, and the experience of colleagues from other health zones, shared in network meetings, joined with what she already knew.
Henri Stanley NYAFE, online from Mbandaka, spoke during the panel.
He asked Dr Meshach a polite but direct question that official reports do not ask. “You say malaria cases are dropping, but we see that more people are dying from malaria.”
Then he raised another point about bed nets. “You are missing something. These mosquitoes bite us around 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Working people are outside under the trees, and there are no bed nets there.”
Mr NYAFE’s point, made from a city in the northwest, opened a practical question that global guidelines do not cover: getting bitten during evening hours, outside the home.
It is in this kind of talk that new approaches can be imagined and existing ones made stronger.
On the chat, François Mufolo Balimumu wrote from Lubumbashi. “The numbers the expert showed are too low. We have many traditional healers in our neighborhoods and villages who never report to the main health clinic.”
This point was not alone.
It matched one of eight findings in the Foundation’s new report, Turning the tide on malaria, which shows that more than 60% of fever care in several countries happens outside public health clinics.
A participant from a hard-to-reach area spoke about displaced people.
“They already face inequality. They do not have supplies or trained staff. They are abandoned and left on their own.”
Later that morning, Francklin Muzo Mukungu, a program manager at the NGO DJPDI, asked to speak. He reported a medicine shortage in the Pinga and Kibua health zones in Walikale territory. Cases of malaria, diarrhea, and measles were rising.
When he registered, he had written, “We are living through violence in North Kivu.”
He knew the room would not solve the problem.
He also knew that what he just said would enter the network’s memory. Colleagues in other provinces would now know it exists.
Father Robert Bougard spoke next and shifted the discussion.
“We know Dr Meshach focused mostly on treatment. As ecologists, we focus on prevention. We want to prevent disease.”
He asked the room to look at what the official numbers do not show.
Water pooling in drainage ditches.
Rising heat.
“A little water sitting somewhere for a few days becomes a real breeding ground, a real place where mosquitoes grow.”
The image matched an observation from the Turning the tide report. The report described young people in Kinshasa who maintain drainage ditches on their own, and farmers in Madagascar who raise ducks that eat mosquito larvae.
The most unexpected moment came from the expert himself.
Pressed by questions from the room about institutional issues, Dr Meshach finally said something a government official rarely says in public.
“The malaria program must stop being a child of the health ministry. It must move up: to the minister’s office, the prime minister’s office, or the presidency.”
The Scholars in the room used their practical experience to push the argument beyond the administrative frame it had been stuck in.
This is exactly what the network has called for, for ten years, as its own contribution.
Technical knowledge grows stronger when it meets local knowledge and peer knowledge face to face.
Three stories told to the room
The program had planned two testimonies before the panel.
Dr Noelly Zola, a general practitioner and Foundation ambassador, spoke first about what had not worked.
She wanted to join international organizations.
The WHO. UNICEF.
She would have needed a master’s degree in public health.
She applied for scholarships.
It did not work out.
“When I was discouraged, I got an email from the Foundation. My mother Charlotte asked me to join the learning platform. That is how I started learning online.”
She learned the method called the five whys.
She used it in her health zone to find the root causes behind problems her colleagues saw as only technical.
She stated plainly the sacrifices it required. “I also lost some close relationships because I was working all the time.”
Today, she is a Foundation Ambassador. She leads Scholar mobilization for malaria training.
Dr Stanis Mutamba, the medical director of a hospital center, came next.
In 2020, he was supposed to lead a water sampling mission in Nagika.
At the same time, he was taking a Foundation program on genital schistosomiasis in women.
The link between the two was not obvious. Then he looked at the village patients using the training tools.
He identified cases no one in the zone would have diagnosed.
He supported the women, explained the disease, and organized a response.
His simple statement closed the sequence. “Train one expert, transform a community.”
Papa Emmanuel Kibambe, the master of ceremonies, wove his own story between two questions. “I have been a Scholar since 2019. I already have seven or eight certifications with this Foundation.” He described what his practice had gained. “In knowledge and learning, you do not need big knowledge. Small tips turn the problem into a solution.”
Three stories, three ways of holding the degree in one hand and experience in the other, and bringing them together in one room.
A network that already exists and acts
The commitment in Kinshasa is real, not just a story we’re telling.
When the Foundation opened its international call, it had 314 ambassadors. 167 of them lived in the DRC.
The title comes with a job: connect with other health workers, close the gap between international guidelines and local action, build the network from the inside.
To become an ambassador, you must finish at least one Foundation program and complete a four-week training.
This is how the “Congolese vaccination movement” started in the DRC.
It began during the pandemic in July 2019. Congolese Scholars started meeting every Saturday at 5 p.m. on Zoom. They shared news, solutions, and questions.
That weekly meeting grew over time. It became a bigger conversation on WhatsApp and video calls. It never stopped.
The May 9 event in Kitambo made this network visible.
Olenga Okitengeno Rita, a community health worker in Kinshasa, wrote for the tenth anniversary collection about finding 121 children who had missed their vaccines in one health zone. She reached more than 80 percent of them.
She did the same thing in another zone.
Marcel Muntu Ilunga, a public health expert working with displaced people, vaccinated ninety-three children aged 0 to 23 months in thirty days.
André Claude Mukinayi Kalamba, a nurse in Kalemie, got into a small canoe for the first time to vaccinate people on the other side of the river. Those people had said no to vaccines before.
None of these stories came from funded projects.
All of them happened.
The bridge between guidelines and the ground
On April 23, 2026, the day before World Malaria Day, the Foundation published its new report, Turning the tide.
It brings together what more than one thousand health workers from sixty-eight countries said, including workers from the DRC.
One of its eight main points starts with a story from Congo.
Dr Bisimwa Muzusa Emmanuel, a doctor in Bukavu, talks about his own children getting malaria even though they sleep under bed nets. “Three of my children, aged one, three, and five, got malaria even though they sleep under a bed net. The youngest had to go to the hospital.”
Another point talks about community work to clean gutters in Kinshasa. This is exactly what Brother Robert talked about at the Kitambo event.
The report connects what health workers do on the ground to what the World Health Organization says to do.
It shows things the guidelines were not designed to collect. It shows things that health tracking systems miss.
It is practical knowledge from people doing the work.
Reda Sadki, speaking late in the morning, said it this way: “This is a new kind of knowledge that can help a health worker. You will not find a guideline that tells you exactly what to do in every situation. But you can read what other health workers have done. You can learn from community health workers, nurses, and midwives, not just doctors.”
The report is available in French and English.
An eight-point summary shows the main findings.
A piece published on World Malaria Day explains how to read the report.
What happens after the group photo
Patrice Bamulenga closed the session with a building image. “What we started today is the foundation stone. Tomorrow, we will build the walls. The day after, we will add the roof. And soon after that, people will live in the building.”
Three things come from this meeting.
The course Malaria: turning the tide. Scholars at the meeting and their coworkers can sign up now.
The Foundation’s next monthly meeting on May 14. Congolese health workers can join peers from around the world. They can see all the training, action, and leadership opportunities.
And proof that a national group of Scholars can run an event this big on their own.
The room sang the national anthem in the last half hour. Then people took the group photo. While this happened, comments kept coming on screen.
Mathieu Kalemayi works at a partner organization’s Congo office. He wrote: “We will join efforts against this disease that causes us grief.”
Benoît Sêdégnon is a consultant for Unicef in Benin. He asked how the Benin network could gain energy like the Congo model.
Abdramane Oumarou is a health union organizer in Niamey. He wrote that “this is a very useful event for us health workers to improve our knowledge.”
Daniel Mafini is a doctor in the Artemisia Ambassadors Network. He asked how he could share his expertise.
Louise Nkusu Lusangu is a Congolese ambassador in South Africa. She raised a question about academic programs and university partnerships for people on this path.
The Kitambo room is just one point in a bigger picture. That picture is already spreading.
In Mbandaka, at five in the afternoon, mosquitoes will start biting.
Messages will keep moving on Henri Stanley NYAFE’s phone. Messages will keep moving on Viviane Mukalay’s phone in Kasumbalesa.
References
- Mbuh, C. and Sadki, R. (April 8, 2026). Ten years already! 10 new opportunities to drive change.
- World Health Organization. (December 2024). World Malaria Report 2024: Regional briefing kit. Geneva.
- World Health Organization, DRC Office. (July 2025). Annual Report 2024. Kinshasa.
- WHO Afro. (December 18, 2024). DRC strengthens fight against malaria in children with preventive treatment.
- President’s Malaria Initiative. (2024). Democratic Republic of the Congo Malaria Profile, FY 2024.
- National Malaria Control Program. (April 2025). Annual Report 2024 on Malaria Control Activities. Kinshasa. See also pnlprdc.org/rapports-annuels.
- National Malaria Control Program. (2020). National Strategic Plan for Malaria Control 2020-2023. Kinshasa.
- Sadki, R. (February 25, 2026). We are the ones who are there every day: how a global network of health workers is closing the last-mile gap.
- Sadki, R. (March 12, 2026). Scholar one day, Scholar always: inside the last-mile global health network that runs on trust.
- Sadki, R. (March 31, 2026). One hand reaching for another: the health and humanitarian workers building a global network from clinics, conflict zones and community halls.
- Sadki, R. (April 17, 2026). Ten years of peer learning and action: The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Alumni, in their own words.
- Sadki, R. (April 17, 2026). Turning the tide: a new insights report demonstrates why health worker knowledge is critical to ending malaria.
- Sadki, R. (May 1, 2026). Turning the tide: 8 practical insights to end malaria.
- Sadki, R. (May 3, 2026). World Malaria Day: what frontline health workers are saying about malaria and why it matters.
- The Geneva Learning Foundation. (April 2026). Malaria in Africa: turning the tide. Teach to Reach 11, Listen and Learn Report No. 19, English edition. Geneva.
- The Geneva Learning Foundation. Registration page for the Special Event on malaria and the Turning the tide on malaria program.