University of San Diego Magazine - Fall 2025

“It’s a continental movement in Africa,” Richardson said. “My heart has been captured by this program and I want to do what I can to support it. Ultimately a skatepark uniquely builds peace and community for the youth of South Sudan.” THE POWER OF IMAGES Along with short-term deployments through DART and his dedicated work to grow skateboarding in South Sudan, Richardson owns the content creation business, Let Known. The goal of the venture is to highlight stories of organizations, businesses and individuals that are impacting others for the greater good. “I have always loved photography,” he said. “Getting to do that original internship was my first exposure to using photography to tell a story that can impact change for good in someone’s life. I have a passion for it.” Richardson understands that imagery can also be used to cast individuals or groups in a negative light, and his training as a photojournalist with Samaritan’s Purse has taught him both the vulnerability and the powerful change an image can bring. Richardson recalls one portrait he took and accompanying story he wrote about a woman named Abuk who had endured numerous hardships including contracting Polio as a kid, becoming a child bride at 16 years old and eventually losing everything in a fire. “Her neighbors said they held her back from jumping into the flames herself,” he said. “But the local church, having gone through biblical training through a Samaritan’s Purse program recently, came together to help her fundraise for a new house and money to restart her small business.

share her portrait in her new house … that made me want to keep doing this work. “Imagery can support programming,” he continued. “A photo can give context of what life is like on the ground, and to follow it up with the impact of a program can inspire change and inspire fundraising. Photos and stories can also be a really powerful way to educate people.” COMMON GROUND Living abroad for more than five years and being consistently exposed to the ills that accompany disaster response missions can take its toll on any individual. For Richardson, maintaining his mental well-being revolves most strongly around his faith. “I have to keep believing there is a greater purpose, that God’s plan is ultimately working and there will be victory in the end,” he said. Richardson also leans on his family and friends as a safety net, and maintains his personal health by doing the things he loves — skateboarding and surfing. “When I get time off in the field, I’ll usually fly somewhere with the ocean and surf. To have that escape to reset in God’s creation is everything. Surfing has been critical to my physical and mental health.” That faith Richardson maintains, despite seeing human populations at their most vulnerable, is grounded in the conviction that there is a common thread that unites humanity. “The more I travel, the more I see that while cultures and religions differ, at the core most people want the same things — to live in peace, raise their families and care for one another,” Richardson said. “That shared humanity reminds me of God’s image in all of us. For me, humanitarian work is simply joining God in what He is already doing — restoring hope, building community and showing His love in some of the hardest, most extreme places on earth.”

recalled. “It’s breaking down tribal barriers. Kids from all over are coming to build peace. I love skateboarding, so some coworkers and I fundraised and got some boards into the country and every time we came back from the States, we brought duffel bags of equipment.”

It was a wake-up call — a defining moment Richardson looks back on honestly, openly and with the hindsight that the next choice he made could easily have altered his life path. The group of friends, understanding the gravity that faced them from a common lack of judgment that plagues all teenagers at some point, owned up to their mistake and struck a deal with the convention center to pay for the damages in return for dropped charges. “In that period, there was a devotional I did on the Parable of the Talents. It made me think of stewardship and how much I had been blessed with the life I had been given having grown up in San Diego and having opportunities like a loving family and so many other blessings that I had taken for granted up until that point,” he said. “To realize I could have thrown all that away in one night. It would have changed the trajectory of my life. I feel

like God gave me a second chance in that moment of stewarding what I had been given.” SKATE TO RECOVER Skateboarding has always been a passion for Richardson, so it’s apropos that while in South Sudan he found a way to help grow the sport among the local population. In 2021, he met South Sudanese skateboarder Titus “Tite” Dominic, a Christian who was using skateboarding as a mission to spread the Gospel and to create a safe space for children and young adults to play, build peace, develop community and create new opportunities for themselves. Through his ministry, Skate to Recover, Dominic was effectively using the sport for trauma healing. “I had never seen skateboarding in South Sudan, and here he was, using one skateboard to teach about 30 kids to skate,” Richardson

Richardson and Dominic partnered up to cofound the South Sudan Skate Federation (SSSF), which has since been recognized by the South Sudanese government, the country’s Olympic committee and World Skate, the only governing body in the world for all sports performed on skating wheels. “The goal is to grow programming and grow the next generation of skateboarders in South Sudan,” he said. “To one day see a South Sudanese skater in the Olympics.”

“It’s breaking down tribal barriers. Kids from all over are coming to build peace.”

“She said to me, ‘I always pictured it would be the white people that come in and do this type of work. I never imagined my own people could do something like this for me.’ Her story has stuck with me ever since, and to be able to write her story and

In September, Richardson and a film crew, through his business Let Known, set out to film a short documentary on SSSF to grow interest and to raise additional funding. They want to purchase land and build the first skatepark in Juba.

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