Diamond Development Initiative

New York, NY; May 12, 2015 – The Diamond Empowerment Fund (D.E.F.) announced today its support of a mobile school for youth in the Kankala mining community of the Kasaï Occidentale province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Set to open in June 2015, the Diamond Empowerment Mobile School will give twenty-five children a chance at a brighter future. It will be one of eight planned schools developed by the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI). Mobile schools consist of traveling teachers and portable materials that are brought to a mining community for a condensed school year. These communities are in remote locations where children, particularly girls, would not otherwise have full access to education.

“To provide education to an additional twenty-five children in mining communities is phenomenal,” said Dorothée Gizenga, Executive Director of DDI. “It means twenty-five fewer children in mining and twenty-five more children with a daily meal and the chance to succeed.”

“Sending schools to kids is a proactive and practical approach to a longstanding problem,” adds Ian Smillie, Chair of the DDI Board. “We look forward to partnering with those, like the Diamond Empowerment Fund, who share our vision on a more permanent solution.”

Says D.E.F President Phyllis Bergman, “The Mobile Education School’s Project is synergistic with D.E.F’s mission to support sustainable approaches to development and education in diamond communities around the world. This is another example of how diamonds truly do good”.

The Diamond Empowerment Fund joins Brilliant Earth as the first two sponsors of mobile schools in the DRC.