Message from our National Director

A personal biography from David McAllister, National Director CBM Ireland

I was born in the Belgian Congo in 1954 and spent the first 15 years of my life there. My parents were missionaries, my mother was a qualified mid-wife from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and my Dad was a qualified engineer from the ship yard. They went to Congo in 1952.

We lived in the forest region around Kisangani (Stanleyville) and my brother, sister and I grew up in the forest area where Stanley walked through. In fact the path he carved out of the jungle was still visible and certainly many of the old ones were full of stories, as we sat around the village fires, of the terrible times of Leopold. I saw many old people with missing ears, noses, hands etc. So I grew up in the area, and with the people, that suffered the terrible genocide and slavery of the late 1880's through to the early 1930's. In fact I have realized that I have personal experiences, or know first hand people with first hand experiences, of Congo from the 1880's through to 2004! (gosh I'm getting old)

During my first 15 years of life I lived in a mud house in the forest villages, went to American boarding school in Northern Congo set up for MK's (Missionary Kids). This is a kind of 3rd. culture group of kids that doesn't know exactly were they fit in to the world scene!

In 1960, when I was 6, we had a lot of trouble in the Stanleyville area due to the struggle for Independence. We were eventually evacuated out of Congo back to Ireland. The again in 1964 there was a major rebellion and we were part of the hostage group taken by the rebels. There was a lot of killing, many of my friends (black and white) were killed, and we ourselves were shot at on several occasions. Some of my close friends (other MK's that I had gone to school with) were killed and wounded then. We were eventually rescued by mercenaries under the command of Major Mike Hoare and we returned to Ireland.

Then in 1967 we were the first whites to go back to the forest area around Kisangani and witnessed what, for me, was the first mass hunger and death situation in a population. My parents were able to help thousands of people, UN and other International Agencies were not active at that time in this area as there were still pockets of rebels in the forest areas.
I returned to Ireland during the summer of 1969, lived in the Old park area of Belfast and tried to get some "A" levels and eventually got in to Queens Uni. to study Agriculture, I was quite driven to return to Congo (Zaire by then) to work with the population to help develop good food growing systems. I guess the rebellion and subsequent suffering I witnessed in the 1960's had a lot to do with this.

Going to school and Uni in Belfast in the 1970's was also an experience as the Old park road area was in the middle of "the troubles" and it was a learning time to understand that the fighting I witnessed in Africa was not because of skin colour but, rather, a function of human nature.

After graduating from Queens I went to France for 2 years to study French, met my wife and we went to Zaire in 1982 and we worked in Africa until 2002.

I worked in private business as a Farm Manager in Rwanda and then joined various International Agencies as Director of Programmes. Latterly (since 1990) I have worked as the Regional Representative for CBM for West and Central Africa. It was during this time that I had to develop many emergency programmes in CAR, Zaire/Congo, Rep. of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sudan.