Generations Gathered Around a Tree ©Isaac Bujirwa | Sote Pamoja DRC & FCRJ London

A FUDEI volunteer and an elder resident of Goma tend together to a newly planted tree on a street median in Goma, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on February 21, 2026.

The image a young woman and an old man, side by side, nurturing a fragile sapling on the asphalt of a city that has known too much war distills the vision of FUDEI coordinator Rachel Malulu into a single, quiet frame.

Under her leadership, FUDEI's tree-planting initiative has become more than an environmental program: it is an intergenerational, cross-community act of civic repair, drawing together Goma's residents around a shared stake in the city's future at a moment when eastern DRC's peace process remains fragile and the humanitarian needs of millions of displaced people continue to go unmet.