Kinshasa, May 9th, 2025 (CPA) – The issue of copyright for young writers in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been selected as one of the questions to be addressed at a conference to be held in Kinshasa on Friday May 9th, 2025, organisers told us on Thursday.
‘I confirm that our association is organising a conference that will also address the issue of copyright from the perspective of collective responsibility and the training of young Congolese authors’, has declared Grace Bilola, President of the Association of Young Congolese Writers (AJCO). ‘It will be treated by Christian Gombo, a writer, who will go back over the practical issues and current flaws in the protection system in DRC’, she has added. When questioned about the mechanisms of the organisation she chairs, she has explained as follows:
‘AJCO supports young writers from the hand-written phase onwards, guiding them towards concrete steps to protect their work: legal deposit with the national library, registration with the Congolese Society of Authors’ Rights and Neighbouring Rights (SOCODA), raising awareness of the concept of fair publishing contracts, training in intellectual property and independent management of their work’.
The President of the AJCO has also announced that her organisation has forged partnerships with specialist lawyers in order to offer professional guidance to our members. For her, this event is a space for transmission, reflection and action. ‘Reflecting on Congolese literature, also means thinking about the conditions of production, the legal security of works and the legitimacy of our languages as languages of creation’, has said Grace Bilola.