Paul Panda Farnana M'Fumu was born in colonised Congo in 1888 or 1890 (?) and arrived in Belgium as a child in 1895, where he had the good fortune to be educated at the Athénée Royal d'Ixelles before passing the entrance examination for the Institut Royal d'Horticulture in Vilvoorde, where he graduated with great distinction.
In doing so, he became the first Congolese to obtain a higher education diploma in Belgium, which he rounded off with training in agronomy at the École supérieure de Nogent-sur-Marne, near Paris.
Returning to the Congo in 1909, he worked for the Belgian colonial state as an agricultural engineer. He experienced segregation and discrimination against him and his fellow Congolese by the colonial authorities.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Paul Panda Farnana joined the Congolese Volunteer Corps and was even taken prisoner of war by the Germans. On his return from the battlefield, buoyed by the rise of Pan-Africanism, Paul Panda Farnana founded the first Congolese association, the Union Congolaise, in 1919. It was the first anti-racist association in Belgium, campaigning for the social and cultural rights of the Congolese, with a particular focus on Congolese veterans, as well as political rights, advocating the emancipation of the Congolese people.
Despite his little-known history, Paul Panda Farnana has undoubtedly left a legacy through his determination and his fight for the social and political rights of the Congolese people. A leading figure in the fight to free the Congolese people from the yoke of Belgian colonial rule, he recently appeared in the " Canon van Vlaanderen "In doing so, he underlined the extent of his legacy to the history of Flanders and Belgium.
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