Model/Activist Noella Coursaris-Masters is building schools andchanging lives in Congo

Model Noella Coursaris-
Masters left the
Democratic Republic of
Congo when she was
just 5 years old. Her
father had just died and
her mother did not have
the resources to take
care of her.
Growing up in Europe, Noella longed to visit
her motherland, as time passed, she
blossomed into a beautiful teen and began
her modelling career.
When she was 18, she went back to the DRC
to visit her mother, at that point she knew
she had to do something to impact her
world, specifically for the young girls and
women in Congo.
Noella strongly believes in the power of
education, in her CNN interview, she shared
that “I believe that if my mother had an
education at the time my father died, she
would have been able to support me and
keep me.“
On the subject of underage pregnancy
which is a major issue in the DRC, “At a
young age they got pregnant, got married,
so how do you resolve the problem of a girl
being pregnant at 12 years, if she’s at
school, if she cuts her education?…If we
give her power to have education I believe
she won’t be a mother at a young age.”
Noella says.
Noella founded the Georges Malaika
Foundation (named after her father);
The Georges Malaika Foundation is
dedicated to the advancement of African
communities by providing educational
opportunities to young girls, aged 5 to 18.
Its vision is to mobilize the resources
necessary to overcome the insurmountable
obstacles a young girl faces to obtain an
education in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. GMF will provide assistance that
paves the way for opportunity, generates
greater choice and empowers girls to make
informed decisions. GMF endeavors to
permanently alter the cycle of illiteracy and
poverty within the D.R. Congo.
The foundation’s current focus is the
construction of an ecological school for 100
children in the Katanga province in the
south of the DRC. This the area where
Coursaris was born and spent her early
childhood. Most of the young girls who will
be enroll in the school when it is completed
have been abandoned, sexually abused or
accused of witchcraft.
Noella is totally committed to the cause and
is optimistic that her young son, Mapendo
gets to experience the DRC is a completely
new light. According to her, “When he is my
age I want him to see a new Congo, with a
strong leadership, with a lot of schools all
over Congo.” We pray so too!