Board of Directors
Bienvenu Kamwendo, Founder & CEO
Bienve is a financial lawyer from Democratic Republic of Congo. He is the founder of Remember Youth For Change (RYC), and Country Director of the Youth Department in the Congo Baptist Church. Bienve saw many reasons to create RYC, but when he met a doctor in a local hospital who didn’t know where to send the children who arrived as unaccompanied patients with bullet wounds, he knew it was time. Bienve wants to help these children anonymously integrate back into civilian life, by offering them mentorship, sports teams to play on, and small jobs around the farm. If at-risk children can provide for themselves financially they are less susceptible to depression, self-destructive behavior, and re-recruitment. He lives in Goma DRC with his wife and children. He is a an alumnus of YALI, Amani Institute and Athari Group.
Kuol Arou Kuol, Board Member
Kuol is a peacebuilder and youth activist in South Sudan. He holds a bachelor’s degree in procurement and logistics from Kampala University. Although Kuol considered a career related to his degree, he has always felt compelled to work with South Sudan’s displaced and vulnerable groups, in particular youth. Kuol himself had a childhood that was significantly affected by war, and he feels strongly about helping others still displaced or otherwise struggling as a result of 2013's civil war. Kuol is an alumnus of the Peacebuilding Institute Rwanda, YALI East, the African Changemakers Fellowship, Ashoka Leaders Academy, Ubuntu United Nations, and he is a generation change fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. Kuol is an alumnus of YALI and Athari Group. Kuol splits his time between South Sudan and Northern Uganda, where his family is located.
Jeff Fonda, Board Member
Jeff has been working in the nonprofit sector since his first trip to Uganda as an undergraduate student at SUNY New Paltz. Volunteering with Soccer Without Borders, he saw schools and students with limited access to books. This drove him to create The Literate Earth Project (LEP), which has since opened 17 libraries at primary schools in Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya. He continues as a senior advisor for LEP. Jeff co-founded Athari Group in 2020 to help other nonprofit founders with great ideas avoid some of the mistakes he made and to reach impact faster. Athari Group has now helped fund and launch more than 20 nonprofits and their founders on four continents. He is also a Client Partner at Kyndryl, formerly IBM, and has sat on various boards both in the nonprofit and for-profit startup sector. He resides in Washington, DC.