Dignity in the Final Chapter
Circle of Life (COL) is a community care programme operating on Idjwi Island in the South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Founded in June 2019 by Mwema Jimmy, COL visits over 200 elderly men and women every month — bringing food, repairing homes, and ensuring that no one dies undiscovered and alone.
Circle of Life operates as a project of PROLASA International (Programme International des Laïcs pour la Santé), a registered international NGO with over 40 years of humanitarian work in the DRC, headquartered in Canada with operational offices in Goma, North Kivu. PROLASA holds a Framework Agreement with the DRC Ministry of Planning (signed March 2021) and has been a recognised development actor on Idjwi Island for decades.
Who We Serve
Idjwi Island is the second-largest lake island in Africa, home to over 200,000 people, reachable only by boat, and entirely outside the reach of national social protection systems. There is no government pension, no elderly care infrastructure, and no other NGO dedicated to its ageing population.
My name is Mwema Jimmy. I live on Idjwi Island, in the middle of Lake Kivu, eastern Congo — one of the bigest
Seven years ago, I started an NGO called Circle of Life because I could not look away from what was happening around me.
The young people of Idjwi are leaving — to Bukavu, to Goma, to Kinshasa to look for jobs and opportunities. What they leave behind are their parents and grandparents. Old people in their seventies, eighties, nineties. Completely alone. No pension. No welfare. No one whose job it is to check on them.
No one — except my team and me.
For seven years, every month, I have used a portion of my own small salary to buy food and fuel. My volunteers and I visit over 200 elderly people. We bring corn flour for their porridge. We sit with them. We repair their broken roofs. We check that they are still alive.
Sometimes, they are not.
I have arrived at a home and found someone who had been dead for a week. A whole week. Alone. Undiscovered. No one had known.
I visit a woman who cannot move herself. Every morning a neighbour carries her outside and leaves her in the sun. If he comes back that evening, she is brought inside. If not — she stays through the night. Exposed. Immobile. Alone. Unable to call for anyone.
When I come and sit with her, she takes my hand and does not want to let go.
I have seen people who own one set of clothing. People sleeping on straw on floors that flood when it rains. People with TB and infected wounds and no one to take them for care. People who have not spoken to another human being since the last time I came.
There is no government for them here. There is no other NGO. There is nothing — except us, on almost no money, every single month.
I run a small corn milling business on the island. When the mill runs properly, it earns a profit. That profit is everything: the food I bring, the medicine I buy, the roofs I fix, the blankets I carry. The machines exist. What I need is the operational funding — fuel, maintenance, working capital — to keep it running.
I have the machines. I have the volunteers. I have seven years of trust built with these communities. What I do not have is enough funds to do this properly.
