Mission & Vision: The core objectives and goals of the organization. For ISOKO-USA
ISÔKO_USA is a non-profit organization incorporated in the USA under the 501c3 IRS code since 2021. It is committed to promote education, unity and connection among all Congolese Tutsi living in the USA and diaspora with their fellow Congolese living in the homeland in D.R. Congo. ISÔKO_USA aims to connect with all Congolese organizations in the USA to promote dialogue for peace, development and participate in projects that enhance integration and pacific coexistence of members of all ethnic groups in our homeland D.R. Congo in general and in the North Kivu and South Kivu Provinces in particular. Our objectives are:
A brief history of the organization (when it was founded and why). For ISOKO_USA
ISÔKO_USA was established in June 2021 and incorporated in the State of Tennessee in 2022 to connect all Tutsi Congolese with their homeland under the same umbrella of ISÔKO_Mutuality established in Goma/Nord Kivu Province since 2017.
Tutsi is one of the eight (8) ethnic group in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu in Democratic Republic of Congo. Tutsi are established from 18th century in the territories of Rutshuru, Masisi, Nyiragongo as well as in Kalehe and on the island of Idjwi in the lake Kivu.
From 1996, Tutsi in D.R.Congo, then Zaire, were killed, their livelihood looted and destroyed by militia groups among the so called “Interahamwe” Rwandan militia who committed the genocide against Tutsi in 1994. The local militia among them “mayi-mayi”, “Ngilima”, militia from Magrivi (Mutuelle des Agriculteurs des Virunga) were enabled and supported by the government forces.
The survivors of these massacres that took place across all the provinces were forced all Tutsi to flee and became refugees in neighboring countries (Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and elsewhere).
On August 22nd and Dec 10th, 1997, the refugee camp of Mudende in Western province of Rwanda was attacked by the same Interahamwe militia and killed more than three (300) hundred men, women, and children with machetes, traditional arms. The massacres of Mudende were recognized by the US Secretary of State, late Madeleine Albright (who visited the refugee camp of Mudende on Dec12th, 1997) in these terms: “ The Mudende camp massacre, the second in four months at that refugee camp, represents a resurgence of genocide in the northwest region of Rwanda. The brutality of this attack on the Tutsi refugees is reminiscent of the genocide of 1994”. Each Dec 10th, we commemorate the massacres of Mudende and still striving for Justice and memorial building where the survivors should go and pay tributes to their love’s oned.
After the pogrom of the killing of Tutsi in August 1998 by the government of Laurent Desire Kabila with unaccounted victims in Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Kamina, Bukavu, Uvira and other many places, the US government granted a resettlement of the survivors of this pogrom. Starting February 2000, the first Tutsi Congolese, survivors of the massacres Lubumbashi, Kinshasa and elsewhere in D.R.Congo were resettled in various states in the Europe, Canda and in the US after six (6) months of rehabilitation in Benin/ West Africa. From 2001, the US, Canada together with other western countries approved the resettlement of Tutsi Congolese from all refugees’ camps in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Burundi. Today, we have a population of more than seven (7) thousands spread out in all inland US states except Hawai and Alaska.
ISOKO_USA was established to connect all these refugees and other immigrants of Tutsi ethnic group from D.R.Congo to promote our culture, tradition, education and other activities that can make them good US citizens.