Migrant Odyssey

Clinical psychologist and GBV case worker talks about her experiences in both psychiatric hospitals and refugee camps, dealing with traumas that - as she puts it- "don't repeat - because they never end." Another episode in the mini series listening to voices from Lebanon.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show  You know as well as I do that stories about migrants don’t attract big spons...

If you want to know a little more  about Lebanon than the usual clichés, this is the episode for you.     "You have to get back up. There's no time to stay down"  This the personal story of  Mohammed - why he calls Lebanon his heart's safe space  AND "Building the national state prevents violence" This is the story of his work for an extraordinary organization -The Ha...

Time and distance never quite heal the pain of war and disruption. And neither do they soothe the longing to return. Souad has been away from her beloved Lebanon for 20 years but both its joys and traumas are ever present. In this third episode in the mini series on Lebanon, she talks, - with  both bluntness and much humour - about her homeland.  Here's the link to a map of Beirut   https://w...

Some people have poetry in their voice - whether they know it or not. Their words, and the  silence in-between, stop you in your tracks.  Which is what fine poetry does.  Areej  has that gift. Whether she talks about teaching children, or coming home to her beloved city or her faith, there is always that moment when you have to pause and look at your world anew. This is the second episode in this...

Lebanon Lives: the first of a mini series   featuring extraordinary, ordinary people in Lebanon - trying to live their lives while their towns, villages and cities are bombed around them.  As host Stephen Barden says, " These people are us." or as Joan Baez put it, in her song, "There but for fortune - go you or I".  Stephen's first guest in this series is Mona - half Ukra...

Gaza Champions is a global community that may be solving two huge problems that plague traditional charities: how to make sure support stays long after the media circus has moved on. And how to get past donor fatigue.  Stephen Barden talks to co-founders Anam Raheem and Matt Davis about how they helped put volunteers from across the world in touch with individual families in Gaza: a network of pen...

While the media focus on punishing - or protecting - the powerful men who consorted with Jeffrey Epstein, it has completely neglected to ask:  how can any man  traffic and exploit women and children in plain sight? And why is it that, despite the Epstein revelations, organizations combating trafficking and  protecting survivors  face more not less governmental delays and significant cuts in fundin...

With Gaza all but obliterated - do the memories and stories of Gazans lie under the rubble as well? If universities, cafes, homes, mosques, churches, hospitals, workplaces and even entire streets have been flattened, what happens to the memories that filled those places? Two organizations have designed ingenious projects to make sure  that Gaza voices do not disappear. Stephen Barden talks to Jo F...

This is the story of a 6 year old girl who was left to look after her younger brother and sister while her migrant parents worked every day and most of the night.  This is the story of Mirujaa, eldest daughter of Sri Lankan refugees whose single minded goal was to succeed in their new country while paying back their families "back home". This is the story of how the burden of the despera...

A sandstorm birth, a village donkey named Kajol, and a gun barrel to the head during the Khartoum Massacre—Ethar’s story pulls you straight into Sudan’s living history and insistently asks a hard question: 70 years of warfare has changed nothing, so where does real change begin?  We open with a clear, human overview of Sudan’s long arc of coups, civil wars, Darfur’s horrors, and the power struggle...

 Stephen Barden talks to Ruchira Gupta, lifelong activist against human trafficking - especially the trafficking of women. This extraordinary woman not only founded a global organization to protect and educate sexually trafficked women and their daughters but, through her work with the United Nations, has driven changes in global laws on human trafficking and drawn up rules of behaviour for the pe...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show  You know as well as I do that stories about migrants don’t attract big sponsors. Governments are hostile, corporations stay cautious, and even NGOs hang on to their tightening budgets. That's why we need your help. Migrant Odyssey exists — to make sure those voices are still heard. If you’ve ever felt that empathy without action isn’t enough, this is one rea...

From the frontlines of one of the world's most enduring humanitarian crises comes a story of extraordinary dedication.  Dr Lex Takkenberg  takes us through his extraordinary four-decade journey working with refugees and displaced persons, including thirty years with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). What begins as an academic interest in internationa...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show  You know as well as I do that stories about migrants don’t attract big sponsors. Governments are hostile, corporations stay cautious, and even NGOs hang on to their tightening budgets. That's why we need your help. Migrant Odyssey exists — to make sure those voices are still heard. If you’ve ever felt that empathy without action isn’t enough, this is one rea...

Ahmad Jaafil shares his story of extraordinary and persistent willpower, He  talks matter of factly about his severe  and rare eye disease and the horrendous struggle  to try and save his sight- in Lebanon and then the USA. If you want to know, in painful detail, what it's like for a  family to do everything and more to heal their young son, this episode will do that for you. And it's al...

This is the story of Hajar - a young woman with Palestinian and Lebanese parents - who understands that her people are woven together - not just by ideologies or politics or even the yearning for a safe homeland but by their  stories. The stories of their humanity, eccentricities, intimacy and tenderness. Stories that are embroidered into every part of their lives.  Send us Fan Mail Support the sh...

Can standing on a rooftop in a refugee camp be the starting point of a journey toward empowerment and change? This episode of "Migrant Odyssey" features Manal, a dedicated social worker and the founder of the Kayani Foundation, that support Palestinian women and girls through the values of family. She takes us through the harrowing history of her family, the struggles of her parents, and...

Life on the West Bank is upside down for Palestinians.  They have little of rights on their land that they have lived on for centuries. The towns that they do live in cannot grow because they are being strangled by encroaching Israeli settlements. East Jerusalem, internationally designated as the Palestinian capital - is not.  A journey that should take minutes takes hours and hours. The places wh...

This episode is extraordinary not just because Tareq - a young man from Gaza - has  an extraordinary story to tell, but because as he tells it , one can hear each stage of his life unfiltered. He is able to express what Tareq the child felt long before his  adult self understood the years' long blockade -seige-  under which his city lived.  And  when we hear his story of when he first had to...

Imagine navigating the complex layers of survivor's guilt while fostering a beacon of innovation amidst the ricochet of conflict. Join us as we welcome Rowan, a resilient Palestinian businesswoman and engineer from the West Bank, who shares an intimate portrayal of life under occupation. Her vivid narratives reveal the deep cultural and spiritual significance of Ramadan, the ingenuity require...

Stellah Nikuze is the daughter of Rwanda genocide survivors. Born and brought up in the Kyaka 11 refugee camps in Uganda, she has emerged as a fierce advocate of refugees and the voiceless.  Educated in classrooms with more than 100 children per teacher, she co-founded the Hodari Foundation which focuses on feeding, skilling and healing traumatised children in Uganda.. Now at university in Canada,...

This is the story of Sofia - a Ukrainian refugee now living in Berlin. After living in Israel , she and her Israel husband  went back to Ukraine a few months before the war with Russia  in 2022,  to be with her mother and grandmother. All too quickly she  found her life turned upside down.  This holder of a masters degree in international economics now works as a cleaner in Berlin and tells her st...

Refugees seek refuge and shelter.  Safety from being brutalised, from  the trauma of witnessing and experiencing acts of terror and horror. But also a haven  where they can retrieve their sense of humanity and self worth, without being spat on for their religion, skin colour or "foreign" accent in their new homes. Our guest today is Susanne Höhne, trauma therapist and psychologist specia...

This is the story of  Zoya, born into a world of upheaval, chaos, and strife and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon - as was her father and grandfather. Equally important, this is also the story of a young woman's journey to transform her harsh reality into a journey of resilience, compassion, and leadership  Our conversation  takes us from one place of conflict -   Lebanon - to...

This is the story of Janvier Hafasha – originally from the Rutshuru zone of north Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and now living in the Kyaka refugee settlement in Uganda. Janvier is one of nearly 400,000 people (according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) who have been terrorized out of Rutshuru, most of them fleeing to Uganda.  Janvier is much more than...