HandUp Congo Founders

The founders of HandUp Congo, Inc., understand that the poor in developing countries often simply lack tools to better their lives and their communities.

Current focus: Lotumbe village, a remote regional medical hub in Equatorial Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Université Protestante au Congo (UPC) in Kinshasa

Women helping women - FLO members work side by side with the team from HandUp Congo in the experimental garden.

Two of HandUp Congo's founders, Lucy Hobgood-Brown (l) & Anne Zolnor (r), share a long history in Congo. Their grandparents moved to Congo in 1912, and their father, Ben Hobgood (shown), was born in Lotumbe, where HandUp Congo focuses its efforts at this time. The family's ties continue to this day.

Chief Financial Officer/Director.
Anne Zolnor brings more than 30 years of experience in clinical, managerial and consulting experience in healthcare to development projects in the Congo, where she grew up. She is the oldest of HandUp Congo's founding sisters, whose grandparents first came to Congo in 1912. A manager with Accenture, the international consultancy, Anne is on the road year-round. She enjoys linking her professional and organizational skills to HandUp Congo's projects, and taps into her international network to increase awareness of Congo's needs. Anne has a Master of Business Administration from Jacksonville University, and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Texas Christian University.

Secretary/Director.
Lucy Hobgood-Brown has lived and worked in nine countries. Her career has included working as a journalist and university teacher, and she is now using more than 25 years of communication management skills to foster capacity-building projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she and Anne grew up. She lives in Sydney, when she is not working on community development projects outside Australia. An Australian-American dual citizen, Lucy has Masters degrees in International Communication and International Social Development.

CEO/Director.
Betsy Brill has mastered multiple disciplines in journalism and communication -- from daily photojournalism to business magazine writing and editing to publication design to marketing publications specialist. With her husband, photojournalist and professor Ken Kobré, Betsy spent more than a year of travel and writing about microfinance approaches in Egypt, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. Among other articles resulting from the year’s journey, her five-part series on the topic for the San Francisco Examiner was a Pulitzer nominee and a runner-up in the Pen West awards for non-fiction. “The world is filled with problems,” she acknowledges, “but solutions fascinate me. Sharing those solutions – taught by women in other developing countries – is the most rewarding thing I’ve done in my life.” Betsy lives in San Francisco but spends part of the year in a small village in France when she is not working in Congo.