“We had no experience with war. When we first heard the word rape we didn’t know what it was,” says one of the characters at the center of “City of Joy.” The upcoming Netflix doc tells the story of the first class of girls at a center in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Created as a safe haven for women survivors in the middle of violence-torn Eastern Congo, The City of Joy was conceived by “The Vagina Monologues” playwright Eve Ensler, Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, and Christine Schuler-Deschryver, a Congolese human rights activist.

The founders dreamed of “a place away from the soldiers, a place where [girls and women] can have peace,” we’re told. Rape is being used as a weapon of war, and at City of Joy, women are encouraged to tell the truth about what happened to them. “I told my story. You can tell your story. There’s a life after all we’ve survived,” girls and women are told.

Director Madeleine Gavin told us that she hopes viewers “will be moved by the people in this film. I hope they will be appalled and outraged by what the women have suffered and I hope they will begin to glimpse how connected the world is  —  that we can’t separate corporate greed from violence in villages that we could never even find on a map,” she explained. “I also hope people will [believe] that change is possible and [understand] that we all have a role in that. If these girls at City of Joy are finding ways to move beyond experiences that would paralyze many, I hope audiences will want to join their fight.”

Gavin is an Emmy-nominated editor whose credits include “Which Way Home,” “What Maisie Knew,” and “Meadowland.” “City of Joy” is her directorial debut. You can catch the doc streaming on Netflix beginning September 7.