Romeo Urikeraka
Mercy Ships International — FPXH+XH Freetown, Sierra Leone
My name is Romeo Urikeraka. I am a photographer, filmmaker, and communications professional from Namibia and for the past several years, I have given everything I have to a calling that chose me before I fully understood it.
I serve full-time as a volunteer aboard the Global Mercy, the world's largest civilian hospital ship, operated by Mercy Ships. My role is to document the work happening on this vessel the surgeries that restore sight, straighten limbs, and rebuild faces. The mothers who see their children transformed. The patients who have waited years, sometimes decades, for care they could never afford. I capture those moments with a camera and tell those stories to the world.
This is not a job. It is a calling.
What I do on the ship matters beyond what most people see. The images and films I produce are what move donors to give, what inspire new volunteers to come, and what remind the world that the forgotten poor are worth showing up for. I am not in the operating theatre but the stories I tell fund the surgeries that happen there. Every frame I capture is an act of advocacy for someone who has no other voice in the global conversation.
I am passionate about the dignity of people who have been left behind by systems that were never built for them. I believe that a photograph, taken with care and intention, can cross every language barrier and reach straight into a human heart. That is the work I do every single day aboard this ship.
Here is what partnership with me looks like in practice. Your monthly support whether $20, $50, or $100 directly sustains my ability to remain on the field. Mercy Ships volunteers are unpaid. We cover our own personal expenses, our travel, and our day-to-day costs out of pocket or through the generosity of people who believe in the mission. I have been drawing from my savings for too long. I need a community of supporters who will stand with me so I can stay focused on the work instead of the finances.
When you partner with me, you are not just supporting one person. You are investing in every story I will tell, every patient whose face I will photograph with respect, every film that will reach someone across the world and move them to act. Your name is in that work, even if it never appears in the credits.
I would be honoured to have you in my corner.