Projects

The Magic Amor association is a third sector organisation, founded in December 2002 by a group of people who share a desire to promote sustainable development in Africa, with a focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Many of the founding members are professionals involved in the fields of health and education.

Magic Amor, whose mission is summed up by Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s quote ‘what we do is just a drop in the ocean, but without that drop the ocean would be smaller’, was born out of the desire to provide answers to the needs of the Congolese population, whose social, cultural and economic conditions have progressively deteriorated over the last forty years.

Magic Amor – Yesterday

Magic Amor initially targeted its aid in the Equator area, located in the north-western part of the DRC, in the heart of the equatorial forest and among the regions most affected by the Congolese civil war.

The late Dr. Nzumbu lo Ambetima, one of our founding members, married to Dr. Carla Mauro, current President of Magic Amor, came from this region and witnessed the decay of both the local cultural heritage and the culture brought by the former colonisers. The schools had become an opportunity to make money on the children and to exploit them in work on the cultivated fields. In response to these serious violations of the rights of the child, Magic Amor created over the years more than twenty school facilities – divided between five head offices and fifteen branch centres – of primary and secondary schools that have educated more than 15,000 children. These schools have adopted an opposite model to that experienced by the children in the past: love in the educational method towards the learners; quality of teaching to enable the pupils to become an added value for their local area.

Magic Amor – Today

The association currently supports and manages its own multi-purpose centre in Kinshasa (capital of the DRC), in the Kimbuta district, which includes a primary and secondary school (the Rocco Campagna school), an outpatient clinic with a drugs dispensary (the Antonino Nicolosi clinic), and an orphanage (the Maison des enfants San Marcello).

By regulation, corporal punishment is strictly forbidden: the children are always lovingly encouraged to continue their studies, with a view to raising the general cultural level of the population.

Magic Amor – Tomorrow

Magic Amor recently renewed its governance and amended its statutes extensively (May 2023). The objectives of promoting gender equality and protecting the flora and fauna of the DRC were explicitly included.

The inclusion of these new aspects in explicit terms will make it possible to set up new projects for women’s self-entrepreneurship, the construction of sustainable infrastructures for the territory, and the defence of the ecosystem of the Kimbuta area (this area of Kinshasa is in fact the subject of intense urbanisation, which entails various threats both to the large local nature reserves and to the endangered animal species that have always been found in the area [see Bonobo Sanctuary]).

Magic Amor has also planned, for the near future, to provide training courses in Italy and at a distance, aimed at managers and executives on the African continent. These courses will be set up with a view to fulfilling the promise of promoting socio-cultural development, which we also intend to address to those who are at the centre of crucial choices: leaders, public and private decision-makers and the African ruling classes.