Hi there – my name is April and I’m a video producer/director living in St. Louis, Missouri. I was raised by two wonderful parents who ingrained in me a strong sense of compassion, fairness, and concern for right and wrong. When I was in college, I heard about the genocide in Darfur and my world was shaken. To learn that a government, in our day and age, is able to exterminate hundreds of thousands of people over a number a years with barely any comment from the rest of civilization was utterly shocking to me.
Shortly after graduating from college, I moved to St. Louis and met a handful of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and became captivated by their warmth and authenticity. Then I heard their stories. Some saw their family and neighbors slaughtered with machetes right in front of them. Some were forced out of their homes by armed men and sent running through the African wilderness for days and weeks, totally on their own. Many didn’t know what became of their family members or if they were even alive. Yet somehow they had made it to the USA and met my acquaintance, changing my life forever.
It’s easy as Americans to ignore what’s going on in Africa, either because we think it’s irrelevant or because it can be uncomfortable and ugly and complicated. But my Congolese friends cannot ignore or forget.
Christia DeShields 
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