This partnership is built on a straightforward premise: transformative community-led work and the institutional infrastructure required to sustain it are equally necessary, and the gap between them is what has kept organizations like CSC-Asbl chronically underfunded despite delivering measurable, verifiable outcomes for years.

Community Support Center / CSC-Asbl is a civil society organization based in Uvira, South Kivu, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, founded in 2016 with nearly a decade of documented program delivery serving thousands of displaced women, children, and youth annually. HUMANDREAM Foundation is a U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) and a minority- and woman-founded strategic intermediary dedicated to amplifying locally led civil society in Eastern DRC.

CSC-Asbl brings the proof. HUMANDREAM brings the architecture that makes the proof legible to the world. Neither role is subordinate to the other.

WHY THIS STRUCTURE

The question worth asking directly is why a U.S. intermediary is part of this equation at all. CSC-Asbl’s program model is proven. Its leadership is experienced and credentialed. Its community trust is deep.

The structural barriers between grassroots organizations in conflict-affected regions and international philanthropic capital are not incidental. They are systemic. Bilateral donors, private foundations, and corporate giving program require U.S.-standard accounting, audit-ready documentation, and outcome measurement systems as prerequisites for engagement, not as final evaluations. They require funder-grade narrative architecture: the ability to frame the same program in the language of a gender-equity foundation, a corporate CSR committee, and a multilateral agency simultaneously, and to sequence those asks so that early wins build the credibility for later ones. They require multi-funder portfolio management so that no single funder carries disproportionate weight, and no two funders are asked to underwrite the same program element.

HUMANDREAM is not a fiscal sponsor or a pass-through vehicle. It is the strategic intelligence layer that determines which goal goes to which funder at which stage of the relationship. It designs the monitoring and evaluation systems that allow CSC-Asbl to demonstrate impact across multiple grant cycles. It maintains the financial controls that open bilateral and institutional funding lanes. It translates lived experience into the language of international philanthropy without imposing external priorities or erasing local voice. And it manages the full funder portfolio so that CSC-Asbl’s leadership can remain focused on program delivery rather than donor administration.

Ruby Guillen, MSW, who serves on HUMANDREAM’s Advisory Board, is a White House President’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient (2023) with 25 years of frontline experience as a Los Angeles County child welfare investigator, during which she assessed the safety of more than 7,000 children in abuse and neglect cases. She serves as Co-Chair of the United Nations Association – United States of America, Human Rights Affinity Group, and has won national recognition for building technology solutions for women’s empowerment. Her involvement connects this partnership to practitioner-level expertise in child protection, women’s economic advancement, and the intersection of human rights and community development.

“Eastern DR Congo carries extraordinary weight, and the women, children, youth, and communities we serve demonstrate extraordinary strength. What has been missing is connection to a world that sees them clearly and stands with them fully. This fund builds that bridge.”
— Byolenganya Olo Bernoulli, Founder and Executive Director, Community Support Center / CSC-Asbl

THE PROGRAMME: COMMUNITY SUPPORT CENTER / CSC-ASBL

Founded in 2016 and led by Byolenganya Olo Bernoulli, CSC-Asbl operates across eight programme areas in Uvira, South Kivu: women’s economic empowerment, sustainable agriculture and environmental management, youth education and scholarships, sports-based peacebuilding, trauma therapy and psychosocial support, children’s safeguarding, sexual and reproductive health, and community resilience.

In 2024, CSC-Asbl reached 3,724 lives across the region. Its EmpowerHer program delivered leadership, entrepreneurship, and life-skills training to 50 women and girls at Kitundu IDP Camp. Its PAFA and Seed the Future agricultural initiatives trained 50 women in resilient farming practices and 47 farmers in Kawizi while planting 100 fruit trees. Its Play4Peace and Mental Health program (P4PM) engaged 785 participants in 2025, with girls’ participation growing from 10 percent in 2023 to 56 percent, a documented outcome of the program reaching the broader community around those girls and not only the girls themselves. Its annual community gathering drew more than 1,300 participants with coverage from local radio and television.

CSC-Asbl accomplished this on a total 2024 budget of $19,000, with only 4 percent allocated to administrative costs and the remainder of its staff serving as volunteers. By 2025, CSC-Asbl grew its operating budget to $50,236 without institutional grant support, demonstrating organizational momentum before seeking additional investment.

South Kivu’s subnational Human Development Index stands at 0.532, placing it in the low human development category according to the UNDP — significantly below DRC’s already-low national HDI of 0.542. (UNDP Subnational HDI). The communities CSC-Asbl serves sit at the intersection of armed conflict, mass displacement, and the systematic targeting of women and girls, in one of the world’s most chronically underfunded humanitarian contexts. The program footprint CSC-Asbl has built in that environment is not merely impressive. It is the foundation that this fund is designed to build upon.

PROGRAM FOCUS: WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT

The fund’s anchor programming expands CSC-Asbl’s women’s economic empowerment portfolio, building the skills, entrepreneurship capacity, and financial stability of displaced and conflict-affected women in one of the world’s most underserved regions.

Phase One expands CSC-Asbl’s women’s economic empowerment portfolio, scaling training across EmpowerHer and PAFA to reach 200 women annually, pairs skills training with the existing PAFA sustainable agriculture network, and builds the monitoring and evaluation infrastructure needed to track and demonstrate income-generation outcomes across multiple grant cycles. Phase Two expands geographic reach into additional displacement sites in Uvira territory and introduces a financial inclusion component, linking program graduates to savings groups and microfinance channels. Phase Three documents the model as a replicable proof-of-concept for other conflict-affected geographies worldwide.

CSC-Asbl has already articulated its 2025-2026 goals around this arc: 200 women trained in sustainable farming, 250 scholarships for displaced children, formal M&E systems operational by end of 2025, and begin fundraising toward a permanent community campus by end of 2026.  HUMANDREAM’s role is to connect those goals to the funders, the reporting infrastructure, and the global visibility that can make them real.

“The HUMANDREAM DRC Fund exists because the world cannot afford to look away from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The work being done there by organizations like CSC-Asbl is a proof point for all of humanity. We are building the infrastructure to make that proof impossible to ignore.”
— Mesan Che Richardson, Founder, HUMANDREAM Foundation

INVITE A CONVERSATION

Philanthropies, bilateral institutions, corporate foundations, and purpose-driven individuals are invited to invest in this initiative. We welcome conversations at any stage of your giving process.

HUMANDREAM Foundation | www.humandream.org
Mesan Che Richardson, Founder and CEO | mesanche@humandream.org | (818) 256-5556

About HUMANDREAM Foundation

HUMANDREAM Foundation is a minority- and woman-founded California 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 39-2867584, serving as a strategic intermediary dedicated to amplifying locally led civil society in Eastern DRC. HUMANDREAM raises funds from donors and institutional funders globally on CSC-Asbl’s behalf and disburses grants directly to CSC-Asbl in support of its charitable programs.

HUMANDREAM operates through a fiscal sponsorship arrangement with Fiscal Sponsorship Allies (FSA), which holds and approves all institutional grant disbursements. For European and international individual donors, the Quakers in Nouvelle Aquitaine (France) serve as the European fiscal host under a signed Fiscal Hosting and Fund Disbursement Agreement. HUMANDREAM and CSC-Asbl operate under signed formal agreements covering program scope, reporting, financial accountability, and audit rights, available to institutional funders upon request.

www.humandream.org

About Community Support Center / CSC-Asbl

Founded in 2016 and based in Uvira, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, Community Support Center / CSC-Asbl is a DRC-registered civil society organization led by Founder and Executive Director Byolenganya Olo Bernoulli. CSC-Asbl delivers programmes in women’s economic empowerment, sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, youth education, sports-based peacebuilding, trauma therapy, psychosocial support, and camp-based services for displaced families at Kitundu IDP Camp. www.csc-drc.org