Answering the Call

The Humanitarian Journey of Gabriel Richardson

"Running to the fire." 

The phrase is central to the mission and ethos of the international aid organization, Samaritan’s Purse, and a personal motto adopted by Gabriel Richardson ’25 (MS).

Richardson, 29, can be described as many things — a San Diegan, a skateboarder, a surfer, a photojournalist, a Christian, a Torero. But ultimately, at his core, he is a humanitarian. It’s a label that has defined both his professional work and his personal projects.

During the past six years, Richardson has traveled to more than two dozen countries and deployed to assist with relief efforts from both natural and man-made disasters to countries such as South Sudan, Sudan, Liberia, Brazil, Syria and Israel. 

“We are always trying to work ourselves out of a job, because ultimately, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) should always be temporarily helping transition from disaster to recovery to sustainable empowerment for locals to be even more resilient than before,” Richardson passionately described while sitting in the backyard of his childhood home in the Allied Gardens neighborhood of San Diego.

A PERSONAL PROMISE 

Richardson is back in his hometown for a short sabbatical. It’s Aug. 4, and in less than 24 hours, he will depart for Israel to assist with relief nutrition programming in Gaza to support a war-torn and starving Palestinian population. The short-term deployment is one of more than a half dozen Richardson has been sent on as part of the Samaritan’s Purse Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART).

“When they need someone with a logistics, operations and procurement skill set, they’ll call me,” he said.

Richardson is a 2025 graduate of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies’ Master of Science in Humanitarian Action and the recipient of the school’s prestigious John Patterson Humanitarian Promise Award. He received the award for his “unwavering commitment to humanitarian service in crisis zones around the world and the U.S., where he has supported displaced communities and advanced peace building efforts.”

The reward is both validation of the work Richardson has completed, and a way to remain accountable and ambitious as he moves forward in his career. “It’s a promise to continue doing the same quality of work as I move forward into the future.”

HUMANITARIAN BEGINNINGS

Samaritan’s Purse recruited Richardson in 2018 for a photojournalism internship in South Sudan. At the time an undergraduate at Point Loma Nazarene University, he instantly fell in love with both humanitarian work and the east African country.

Following the internship, he joined the organization’s two-year apprenticeship program, which invests in young professionals and integrates them into the global humanitarian aid network.

Richardson was slotted into the operations training track, which provided real-world, hands-on experience in logistics, field procurement and operations management. The work was a natural fit for Richardson, who had since earned a dual undergraduate degree in international business and international development.

From aiding hospital overflow patients in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic, to supporting senior operations management in Liberia, to vetting local suppliers in South Sudan, the work piqued Richardson’s growing interest in the logistical side of humanitarian work — vital work that many people don’t naturally think about when they think of international aid organizations.

“When I first got to South Sudan, we vetted roughly 150 suppliers in seven months,” Richardson recalled. “We needed to revamp the whole supplier database and I got a really good grasp about the capacity of vendors and how to recommend to leadership legitimate suppliers for procurement.”

“Although it was an adventure living out in the bush of South Sudan, the best part of my job was supporting locals.”

The logistical oversight was critical because there are a lot of nefarious business activities in places like Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

“It was fascinating to see the tactics they use to try and gain awards from organizations,” Richardson said. “Juba is an NGO city, basically, so vendors are extremely reliant on the funding and you start to see how they can manipulate the system. It was an interesting challenge to come up with policies to mitigate those risks.”

Success through the apprenticeship led to the organization creating a new position for Richardson to stay in the country  emergency response operations coordinator. Through the role, he was able to continue his work in logistics/procurement and also spend a lot of time training local staff.

“Although it was an adventure living out in the bush of South Sudan, the best part of my job was supporting locals. I always say that I’m just a visitor. I’m going to do as much as I can to support those that grow up there,” Richardson said. “They know their culture and their people, and investing in them and seeing sustainability … it’s the most rewarding part to teach people the skills and then seeing their progression.”

A CIRCUITOUS PATH

“I had never thought about this work until college,” Richardson said.

An avid skateboarder as a teenager, Richardson had a pair of run-ins with the law that provided the necessary scare that would eventually lead him to dedicating his life to helping others. At age 17, he was arrested for violating curfew while skateboarding in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. To complete community service hours, he got involved in homeless ministries at Point Loma Nazarene and ended up leading the ministry the following year.

A year later, Richardson and some friends faced police charges after trespassing to skateboard on convention center grounds and accidentally damaging a golf cart.

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 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.”

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.”

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. 

“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.

“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 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.”

— Story by Matthew Piechalak; portrait images by Alé Delgado 

'Answering the Call' was the cover story in the Fall 2025 issue of University of San Diego Magazine.