During the holiday season of promoting joy and peace into the New Year, there is good news. I find a glimmer of hope for women and girls who live many miles from my home in New Jersey. To my surprise, it makes me feel good to learn that there is such a thing as the City of Joy and that within the walls of this city young women have achieved success in healing from trauma and horrendous conditions of war, abuse, and poverty.

These women I am speaking about live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where females of all ages are trapped in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and face rampant insecurity. Here, cases of rape and conflict-related sexual violence have surged by a third compared to last year. Matter of fact, three women died every hour from pregnancy and birth-related complications as compared to the previous year.

Sounding the alarm in the UN News, Ana Carmo on October 21, 2025, spoke about the neglected humanitarian crisis of women and girls who are being raped, exploited, and abused in camps, in transit, and within their own communities. Women in the DRC continue to face alarming levels of gender-based violence, particularly in overcrowded displacement camps where protection and security remain limited. This crisis is exacerbated by chronic hunger and the lack of livelihood opportunities for the displaced in host communities. Yet, Congolese women and girls who endure tremendous suffering and hardship never give up the precious commodity of “hope.”

What is the UN Doing to Abate Violence and Provide Hope?

Bentou Keita, a prominent United Nations diplomat known for her peacekeeping, leadership, and stabilization missions, issued a message in an exclusive interview with UN News after briefing the Security Council on the situation in Eastern DRC. In it, she expressed “compassion and empathy” for the long suffering of the population. Jerome Bernard, in his article on the UN position in the DRC, reported that despite the daily difficulty, the Congolese people show resilience in their efforts to find peace and security.

How Do Abused Women Experience Joy?

These women who have been abused, work towards their healing at the City of Joy where they abide by the five tenets of turning their pain to power in their community:

• Rebirth is possible
• Grassroots women know what they need
• Women heal in community
• The earth is a central part of our healing
• Art, theater, music, and dance are critical to recovery

The City of Joy was born out of a series of conversations and opened in 2011. Since its debut, 2,322 women have passed through the City of Joy’s doors and have applied the skills and tools they’ve learned to guide them into knowing how to live a new life. Like all communities, the City of Joy has its own culture, one that is grounded in respect for each other, love, and the unique lived experience that each woman brings to the group.

The 10 Guiding Principles are to:

1. Always tell the truth
2. Stop waiting to be rescued and take action
3. Know your rights
4. Raise your voice
5. Share what you have learned
6. Give what you want the most
7. Feel the truth about what you have been through
8. Use it to fuel a revolution
9. Practice kindness
10. Treat your sister’s life as if it were your own

Olivia Acland, in her article in Sierra (Winter 2025), “Turning Pain into Power,” describes what life is like in “The City of Joy” by saying that nearly 90 women circle around a classroom in a jubilant conga line while laughing as they move. The pace speeds up as four female staff members pound drums, a teacher calls out a chant, and women sing it back as they whirl around to the edges of the room in song.

The female dancers, ranging from 18 to 30 came from villages and towns across the war-torn eastern province of the DRC. Each of them who participated in the program in Bukavu, a city of 1.3 million people, has endured a form of violence. Many who struggle to recover find it difficult to be accepted by families who shun them, but after going through the 6-month program that begins with basic reading and writing, students move on to civil law, nutrition, reproductive health, and self-defense, and begin to learn how to know their rights, their bodies, and their strengths. The students learn not to blame themselves for what they have gone through because the abuse was beyond their control in a country in chaos.

However, learning and therapy are not confined to the classroom because students also work on the City of Joy’s 835-acre farmland with crops, livestock, fishponds, and beehives, which not only sustain life with food,  but build their spirits so that they develop a healthy relationship with the earth as another way of helping themselves to heal.

The City of Joy has about 30,000 trees. The center runs restoration programs for the surrounding deforested hills and has woven climate change into its curriculum in response to the region’s increasingly extreme weather that floods rivers, lakes, and towns. The reason for this is rampant deforestation, caused largely by cutting down old trees for charcoal, which is ruining the country’s forest and carbon sinks.

V-World Farm is a partner with its lush land forming a cooperative that tends to it and teaches the women sustainable farming methods. The farm grows fruits and vegetables, tons of rice and kilos of honey, so the students learn how to take care of Mother Earth and be fruitful.

When the students complete the program, graduates are meant to return to their communities as leaders and agents of change. The reintegrated women have ongoing support and guidance on applying the skills they have learned on how to live a new life. Some have ventured into nonprofit businesses, as well as farms, orphanages, and homes for the elderly. They refer other women in need to the City of Joy.

Graduates of the program say that group therapy taught them to accept themselves and that they are not alone. Nature has helped these women to heal because for every tree that is cut down for wood at least one is planted. Others say the farm is like medicine, and that nature helps them to heal, to become leaders, and to encourage others to do the same.

What can societies around the globe learn from The City of Joy?

As a peak performance coach who empowers children, teens, and  young adults to use the power of their minds in my book: Wrestling Through Adversity, I am amazed at how the lives of women and girls were changed around in a matter of just six months after experiencing violent sexual abuse and trauma during civil war and unrest in the DRC. When I think of how pain was turned into power for these women and girls who then free others to do the same, it gives me hope and joy for the future, especially if we begin now to implement a paradigm shift that I recommend in my book and Mindful Toughness ® skill sets I teach to promote mental health rather than just treat mental illness and trauma-informed care after the damage has already been done.

Imagine a World with Cities of Joy Around the Globe

Just allow yourselves for a moment to imagine this transformation of creating Cities of Joy in the US, where mental illness is spiraling out of control, especially among women, where we have a high infant mortality rate, where gun violence is a leading cause of death for our young people from the ages of 1 to 19, and where suicide is the second leading cause of death of our college students.

For a starter, lets imagine a world where news of sexual abuse scandals of women and girls are no longer a prominent headline in US and UK politics. How about imagining the implementation of a new paradigm shift that nurtures teens’ growth and development like Mother Trees do in the forest so they don’t grow up too fast—a concept I speak about in my book in Chapter 12: “Keeper of the Trees” and in the Epilogue with the poem: “The Phantom Limbs.

Those interested can look for my next blog into the New Year where I talk about building Cities of Joy for everyone, especially for our youth.