Apeya is an 18-year-old South Sudanese mother. She was 11 years old when rebels came to her family’s home and brutally killed her father. Along with her mother and siblings, she fled to Imvepi Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Her five-day trek on foot through incredibly dangerous wartime conditions was just the beginning of a journey of loss, heartbreak and despair.

The DRC remains the country with the largest number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Africa -- more 6.3 million, or 6 percent of the DRC’s total population. Largely forgotten amid stories of more recent outbreaks of war in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, DRC has been embroiled in sectarian violence for over 30 years, particularly in the country’s eastern provinces. Astonishingly, some 120 armed groups remain active in in Ituri, North Kivu, South

Imagine: You hear men at the door one night. They drag your husband outside. As you watch through the window, they brutally kill him in cold blood. Then they move on to other houses.

Your nightmare has just begun. Leaving nearly everything but your baby behind, you flee in tears while you have the chance.

I know this is a brutal story. But it was the stark reality for Kasime, an adolescent mother from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who was forced to flee her home last year amid rising violence.

Haylie Wright, a master’s degree student at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), recently cited ChildVoice as a model nonprofit organization in her master’s dissertation (thesis in the US). Haylie’s focus was on the therapeutic benefits of sports activities (and adjacent activities such as art, dance, and drama) as a tool to enhance the efficacy of psychosocial healing for war-affected youth. Although she was unable to visit our facilities in Uganda, Haylie interviewed multiple staff members both in the US and Uganda to complement her research.

Five years ago, Kalista had no hope for any kind of future. She had fled South Sudan’s civil war with her six younger siblings to the relative safety of Imvepi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda. She escaped the violence of war. But sadly, at Imvepi she exchanged the threat of violence for the heartbreak of sexual exploitation.

Recently, our Class 15 graduates of the Lukome Center took their Uganda Directorate of Industrial Technology (DIT) certification exams. We are pleased to announce that all of them passed, most of them with excellent scores!

Akira Imanari is a remarkable young man from Japan who recently completed his internship at the Lukome Center in Gulu, Uganda. A trained nurse who has worked in a hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Akira initially hoped he would be able to offer some of his medical skills. He quickly learned that expectation and reality don’t always align. And while Richard Kyitarinyeba, ChildVoice’s Head of Office in Uganda, was at first skeptical of welcoming an intern from Japan, he quickly became impressed by Akira’s determination to contribute – and to learn.

As we reported in January, the enhanced agriculture training program we initiated last year in response to a growing hunger crisis within Imvepi Refugee Settlement produced remarkable results. A total of 200 adolescent girls participated. One of those students is Caroline. At harvest, her crop yield was more than impressive: 440 pounds of sorghum, over 600 pounds of maize, and more. Selling excess crops allowed her to buy clothes and bedding for her children, renovate her small thatched house, and purchase goats. And she has stored enough cereal grain to last her family until mid-May.