Aid The Congo DRC is run by a team of volunteers who freely give their time and skills, to help our collective vision of providing safe access to healthcare for some of the world’s poorest. We are so grateful for every volunteer.
Leading the team
Rev. Charles Ilunga
Founder
I am a British Methodist Minister from the DRC, who happened to escape with my wife and 5 children from the civil war that took many lives in the Congo DRC during the years 1998 – 2001. I arrived in the UK with my family in 2007, after almost ten years as a refugee in Zambia, where we were granted asylum status, resettlement and indefinite leave to stay. For 10 years I served in the Methodist Forest Circuit of the London District. Currently, I have pastoral oversight for Forest Hill and Wesley Hall Methodist Churches in the Blackheath and Crystal Palace Circuit.
My experience of life in very poor, destitute conditions in the DRC and the refugee camp, and my life in the UK, have been the drive that led to the birth of Aid The Congo DRC.
George Barbrook
I have worked for over 30 years as a newspaperman for the Birmingham Post and Mail part of the Trinity Mirror Group of Newspapers now known as ‘Reach’.
I worked in a variety of disciplines from Advertising, Sales, Event Management, Public Relations and Journalism.
In later life, I returned to college and studied for a diploma in theology and apologetics where I met the Rev Charles Ilunga and helped edit and broadcast online Christian sound magazines for the blind and partially sighted.
Irene Ilunga
I am a student at Greenwich University, where I study architecture, the daughter and third child of Charles and Josee ILunga. I came to the UK with my parents without having lived in the DRC as I was born in the refugee camp in Zambia.
Through my parents stories and the realities of my extended family in Congo, I’ve grown up very aware of the hardships of majority of the people’s lives in my country. Having visited the DRC, in 2015 I was able to see and experience first-hand the misery of the people. My own life from poverty to an access to soo many opportunities through education is the main reason why I give my time towards this charity.
I know in all people, rich or poor, there is potential, and I’d love to contribute to the enlightenment of the lives of peoples and communities, in poverty and be privileged to see the progress that they themselves can bring to their own community and the world.
Josee Ilunga
I am a mother of 5, originally from the DRC, I choose to give my time and what I have to this charity because I know how people from that corner of the world suffer, because of a lack of health services and facilities. In many remote villages in the DRC, pregnant women die in labour almost every week, and children are taken seriously ill even for the mildest infections; there are no proper health centres, and any around are not sufficiently equipped to treat patients. As someone who grew up in these conditions and a mother, I’ve always wanted to do something about it. At Aid The Congo DRC, with the help of all the donors and volunteers, I can help do something about it.
Emmanuel J.K Agyei
I am Ghanaian by birth and a chartered Management Accountant with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants by profession.
Alongside accounting, I have also taught economics at the University level and have held multiple managerial positions within the finance departments of several universities in Nigeria and Ghana.
I moved to London in 2011, where I worshipped at Cann Hall Methodist Church, Cann Hall Rd where with Rev. Charles Ilunga, the charity Aid The Congo DRC was formed. I am married with 4 children and 3 grandchildren.