Eben-Ezer University of Minembwe

Eben-Ezer University of Minembwe was co-founded in 2011 and is led by Dr. Lazare R. Sebitereko. The university is the only university in the area and focuses on entrepreneurship, development and teaching skills. The universities main mission is sustainable community development and prioritizes in training the rural youth. The University has recently been partnering with Cornell University, who helps provide two courses at the college. In the last fifty years of independence of the DRC, the awareness to education grew both in cities and villages by missionaries. This sensitization influenced the drain brain from rural to urban centres in search for higher education. However, many of successful students never came back to their villages and instead sought jobs cities. This fact encouraged the endless rural exodus to cities and towns as if that is the way of life. However, those who cannot afford the long journey to cities, their chances to higher learning education become deemed. Moreover, with limited employment opportunities at local markets, there is a need to train not job seekers but creators of jobs who would be part of the engine of local development. Eben-Ezer University comes, therefore, to support this noble rural academic education.