This book covers more than a decade of child protection work and ethnographic field research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It tells two stories: one of the entrenched violences survived by young people and their daily struggles to cope with deepening poverty and blocked aspirations ; the other, a personal journey that begins with the will to do good and ends with the realization of how international aid contributes to greater harm. It offers a new perspective to reframe how the world sees the DRC, and urges global audiences to consider their own roles in fueling the DRC's otherwise endless violence