Charity event to raise funds to help bring Apolina Kakonga's family to Australia

Apolina Kakonga, 43, watched her husband gunned down by soldiers in their African village, and was forced to flee through the forests of Congo with her young children.

A human rights advocate, her husband became a target during the brutal uprising of 2008 and was shot during a night-time attack before the gunmen turned on the terrified family.

Running for their lives, they reached a border village where Apolina realised she had become separated from four of her children in the war-torn chaos.

To this day she has no idea if they are dead or alive; four children lost to her forever in the horror and bloodshed of war.

Apolina arrived in Australia under a humanitarian visa in 2015, with her two biological children, Steve (now 19) and Eliza (16), as well as her orphaned niece Honorina (now 18) and nephew Leo (20), who she has cared for as her own.

Today, incredibly, she is full of smiles and happy dancing, resplendent in a wonderfully colourful dress as she shares a little of her life on the Border and pride in her children's achievements and the opportunities they've been afforded here.

The three eldest are now working in Melbourne - Leo wants to be a builder, Steve aspires to be a professional soccer player and Honorina an international nurse - while Eliza thinks she'd like to be a paediatrician.

Apolina, who works full-time as a cleaner in Wodonga, was granted Australian citizenship a few years ago and says this country "is very very good".

"Peace is here," she states simply.

But while her heart and home are now in Australia, two years ago she discovered some of her relatives were still alive in the Nakivale refugee settlement in Uganda.

Their story mirrors her own - a journey of courage and survival.

The eldest boy shepherded three children, the youngest only two years old, through the jungle for days until he got them to a village on the border, before they were later transported to a UN camp.

They are now living under the care of Apolina's second husband, Oleko, who she met in the refugee camp she survived for seven years.

With the help of the Border's long-standing refugee advocate Dr Penny Vine, the immigration paperwork is in place to bring the rest of Apolina's family to Australia.

Hands and hearts she can hold and cherish - and a sanctuary they can call home.

But it's an incredibly expensive, time-consuming and complex process, Dr Vine explains.

That's why supporters are staging a musical charity event on Saturday, August 12 at the Albury Wodonga Theatre Company to raise the rest of the funds needed to bring Apolina's family home to her.

An ordinary humanitarian visa can take up to five years to obtain, according to Dr Vine.

"It's gruelling to get out (of those camps)," she says.

"Babies are born and people die there."

The camps are notoriously unsafe, particularly at night for women and children.

Rape and kidnapping is common.

Women line up for hours to access often putrid water and food rations; 3kg of corn and 1kg of beans per month to feed five people.

Apolina remembers it well.

She shakes her head, recalling the fear, the fight for survival and the slow extinguishing of hope.

Hope she desperately wants restored to family she had presumed dead.

Friend and volunteer supporter Tracy Horner sees the fundraiser event as an opportunity to also bring greater awareness to the plight of refugees.

"This is just one family in Albury-Wodonga; one family in Australia," Tracy says.

"Theirs is just one story out of thousands upon thousands.

"We see them every day on our streets and people don't know their story - and that's OK - but we need to understand these people don't leave their homes, their culture and families they love without very good reason.

"Those reasons are for safety, survival and the hope of a better life."

The musical soiree will include entertainment by Nothin But Treble, Good Gravy, Craig Quillam & Astra Coffey, Charli Ivic & Friends.

There will be hot and cold canapes, bubbles on arrival and an open and silent auction, bar and lucky door prizes.

The cost is $80 with all proceeds going directly to funding the immigration process for Apolina's family.