People of Dzaleka and its wider community
Marcel Cirhuza
Also known as Marcel Chiruza
Congolese humanitarian who spent years as a refugee in Dzaleka and founded Fountain of Hope Africa; named a 2023 Obama Foundation Leaders Africa participant.
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Early life
Marcel Cirhuza was born and raised in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and fled the country because of the conflict there. He then lived as a refugee in Dzaleka; by the account of the organisation he later founded, he fled in 2009 and spent eleven years in the camp.
Fountain of Hope Africa
Cirhuza founded Fountain of Hope Africa, which its own materials describe as the first refugee-led organisation formally registered in Malawi and date to 2010. He remains its founder and executive director. The organisation provides emergency and psychosocial support to refugees and host communities and is covered in its own entry.
Recognition
In 2023, Cirhuza was named a participant in the Obama Foundation’s Leaders Africa programme. His Obama Foundation profile records that he credits the resilience he built during his time in Dzaleka as the basis for his later work.
References
Sources
- 1Marcel Cirhuza — Leaders Africa 2023
The Obama Foundation
- 2Who we are
Fountain of Hope Africa
- 3Fountain of Hope Africa — Partner profile
African Collaborative
Related entries
Institution
Fountain of Hope Africa
A refugee-led organisation founded by Marcel Cirhuza, who spent years in Dzaleka after fleeing eastern DRC, providing emergency and psychosocial support to refugees and host communities from a base in Dowa.
Institution
Refugee-led organisations in Dzaleka
Organisations founded or led by refugees that provide education, advocacy, technology, livelihoods, arts, protection, and mutual support within Dzaleka and beyond.
People
Innocent Magambi
Refugee-rights advocate and founder of There Is Hope, whose work grew from his experience living in Dzaleka and other refugee camps.
Place
Dzaleka Refugee Camp
A long-established refugee settlement in Dowa District, Malawi, opened in 1994 and now home to a large, multilingual community from the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa.
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