About Us
The AusCongo Network was founded by Pastor Constantin Mukendi in the year 2008, after he identified a need for better systems to ensure remittances sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) by Congolese people living in Australia. He was inspired by the proverb “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. From this dream AusCongo Network was born.
Guiding Values
We are directed by the communities we work with. We support the empowerment of community members to make their own decisions and support them to achieve their goals. We work within an asset-based community development approach to harness a community’s strength. In basic terms, we use a method of sustainable development which focuses on a community’s strengths, capacities, and assets.
It is a bottom-up model of development. We work within a business development framework, which we used to commence our work in the Brisbane community. We prioritise participatory, people-centred methodologies that develop knowledge, skills, and opportunities. We respect individuals and encourage them to achieve their highest potential. Our business development and microfinance programs ensure all participants receive training and support in line with best practice found through research. We prioritise relationships through supporting values such as, trust, integrity, accountability, transparency, ownership, commitment, using what we have, self-help and mutuality.
We are open to collaborating with all members and partners who share our aims and can work with our values. We encourage entrepreneurial values of initiative-taking, innovative, and prudent opportunity recognition, evaluation, and implementation. We believe individuals and groups can design their own business structures to achieve individual and collective goals. Our business development training aims to facilitate success for our individual and community entrepreneurs.