What happens when an ex-child soldier wants to start a new life? A new comic book from Peace Direct called “The Challenges of War: Finding Freedom” tells Lembaka's story in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He joined an armed group at age 10, and after years of brutal violence escaped back home.

But it was a struggle to fit back into his community and find steady work. “Sometimes I was working in farming, sometimes I was hunting rats, bats or hares to eat,” Lembaka says.



That's when a local organization, Centre Résolution Conflits (CRC), came to his community and helped improve his farming skills so that he was able to get his own cocoa field. “People now come to me for advice on agricultural matters,” he says.

CRC works to get at the roots of the cycle of mistrust and recourse to violence, so that many more Congolese people can find freedom in their lives.


Read the comic here now:

https://www.peacedirect.org/us/the-challenges-of-war-finding-freedom-comic-book/


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