Objective:
The goal of this campaign is to create an educational center for the promotion of sustainable development as well as international peace though intercultural, inter-ethnic and interreligious dialogue that will spark leadership in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for generations to come.
Who We Are:
![Spiros Lazaris](img/spiros.jpg)
Spiros Lazaris P.E. - Congo Revival Founder
and Executive Director
Spiros Lazaris is
an accomplished professional engineer with over
25 years of diverse experience in the areas of Civil
and Geotechnical Engineering, Program Management,
and Project Management for Public Works Infrastructure
Projects and Land Development. Spiros is the founder
and managing principal of Spiros Lazaris Engineered
Solutions L.L.C. (S.L.E.S), specializing in providing
consulting services for public infrastructure used
for the conveyance of people, vehicles, basic energy
and commerce in the remote, complex and challenging
environments of the sub-Saharan African region.
Spiros is an adjunct professor in Civil Engineering
and Construction Management at California State
University in Northridge. He is a member of the
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) - Strategic
Communications Subcommittee for the ASCE Committee
of Sustainability recognizing sustainability as
a set of environmental, economic and social conditions
in which society has the capacity and opportunity
to maintain and improve its quality of life without
diminishing available natural, economic and social
resources. Spiros serves in the capacity of a reader,
evaluator and assessor for the Mandela Washington
Fellowship for Young African Leaders – President
Obama's Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI)
created to support young African leaders in academic
and leadership skills preparing them to lead Africa.
He is a certified World Mentor raising achievement
levels of professional engineers by removing employment
barriers and encouraging employees to develop their
engineering skills and utilize talents to their
fullest. Spiros is the author of the capstone chapter
of the book Design-Build for Water and Wastewater
Projects and a recipient of multiple national awards
from the DBIA and APWA for the Design-Build Charnock
Well Field Restoration project. Born and raised
in Zimbabwe and having lived in Zambia, Spiros is
very familiar with the region's local culture and
infrastructural dynamics and brings years of professional
engineering experience and significant knowledge
to any project in any location in the Sub-Saharan
African region.
![Mutombo Nkulu-N'Sengha](images/Mutumbo_sm.jpg)
Mutombo Nkulu-N'Sengha – Co-Founder and Educational
Director
Mutombo Nkulu-N'Sengha is a tenured
Professor at California State University Northridge
(Los Angeles) where he is a member of the "African
Studies Interdisciplinary Program" committee, and
teaches various courses of African and African American
Studies, as well as interreligious Dialogue, and
world religions and the politics of peace and violence.
He is also a visiting Professor at the University
of Kamina (Congo). Director of the Bumuntu Peace
Institute, he is also the Co-founder of Congo Revival.
Born and raised in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, he was educated in Africa, Europe, and the
USA where he defended, in Philadelphia, a doctoral
dissertation on the philosophical and theological
foundations of an African vision of human rights,
with a focus on the human condition in post-colonial
Central Africa and the relation between Church and
State in the Congo. Mutombo who speaks 7 languages,
has traveled, done research and given lectures in
16 countries around the globe, including Germany,
Switzerland, England, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium,
Mexico, Indonesia, and Rwanda. Over the last 20
years he has elaborated the "Bumuntu Paradigm" of
African humanism and its application to peacemaking
processes, democracy building, and human rights,
and sustainable development, and has published extensively
on this African art of becoming humane known as
Bumuntu in the Congo. His poetic meditation on the
human condition in Africa and around the globe was
published in the US in 2011 under the title "Bela-Wenda:
Voices from the Heart of Africa."
![Jean-Louis Peta Ikambana – Co-Educational Director](images/Jean-Louis_lg.jpg)
Jean-Louis Peta Ikambana – Co-Educational
Director
Jean-Louis Peta Ikambana serves
as the Area Director of the American Friends Service
Committee (AFSC)-DC Peace and Economic Justice Program.
AFSC is an international, Quaker organization, recipient
of the 1947 Nobel Prize, committed to social justice,
peace and humanitarian service world-wide. Prior
to his D.C. assignment, Mr. Ikambana has served
in several capacities the cause of the advancement
of human dignity in different international, national
and local organizations in Africa, Europe, South
America, and North America as teacher, social worker,
program manager, program director, board member,
and advocate. He is fluent in Lingala, Kikongo,
French, Spanish and English. Mr. Ikambana holds
a BA in Philosophy and Human Sciences from l'Institut
Saint Pierre Cainisius, Kimwenza-Kinshasa (DRC),
an MA in Political Science from La Javeriana University,
Bogota (Colombia), an MS in Criminal Justice from
Saint Joseph University, Philadelphia (USA), a Ph.D.
in African American Studies from Temple University,
Philadelphia (USA), and a Master's Degree in International
Affairs at American University (USA). Mr. Ikambana
runs the DC Human Rights City Program. He led a
coalition of D.C. grassroots organizations, schools
and government officials that successfully culminated
with the proclamation of Washington, D.C. as the
first human rights city in the United States. Currently,
he is leading the efforts to expand human rights
learning in D.C. public and private schools.He is
currently serving on the board of Jesuits Refugee
Service USA (www.jrsusa.org). He is the recipient
of the 2010 Community Human Rights Award presented
by the United Nations Association of the National
Capital Area. He was recently awarded the 2014 Presidential
Volunteer Service Award. Mr. Ikambana is the author
of " Mobutu's Totalitarian Political System. An
Afrocentric Analysis", published by Routledge, and
a contributor in " Africa In the 21st Century",
published by Routledge.
WHAT WE DO:
Being board members of the Bumuntu Peace Institute (Pan African Institute for Peace, Education, Dialogue and Development), we are working with an advisory board consisting of Congolese and American academicians and professional experts in the engineering and construction industries to provide sustainable infrastructure in the D.R. Congo. Our overall objective is to reinvigorate specific impoverished and remote townships of the sub-Saharan Africa particularly the southern D.R. Congo by providing sustainable solutions to physical and human infrastructure. These solutions will prevent local physical urban infrastructure deterioration and human infrastructure decline, which will have a detrimental effect on the communities, livelihoods, and local economies in the near future. The mission and goals of this initiative reflect my passion to mobilize the revival of the southern Congo.
HOW WE DO IT:
Through strategic public-private-partnerships and relationships Congo Revival has received endorsements from high governmental elected officials, religious leaders, Senators, Parliamentary members and African Tribal Chiefs within the D.R. Congo supporting our objectives to build the "University Complex" - a sustainable modern, private, non-profit and co-educational international university capable of connecting with other satellite branches in North Katanga, Congo. The main university grounds will be linked to a new hospital surrounded by sustainable agricultural land connected through an improved local road network.