Asylum Speakers Podcast with Jaz O'Hara: Stories of Migration and Displacement

In 2015, two young men called Carlito and Justin, hid inside the wheel well of a plane flying from Johannesburg in South Africa, to London. As the wheels of the plane were lowered for landing, Carlito fell from the sky, to his death on the roof of an office building in West London. Against all odds, his best friend Justin survived, and was found on the runway at Heathrow airport. 

Today I speak to Rich Bentley, a filmmaker from London who spent five years looking for Justin and making a film about Justin and Carlito’s story called The Man who fell from The Sky. Rich’s film aims to show the human story behind making such a desperate and dangerous decision.

There have only been 128 people ever recorded to have attempted a journey like this… and only 24 of them have survived. This is not surprising because at every stage you are brought close to death. You can fall from the plane as it takes off, be crushed by the wheels as they retract back into the plane, or die from the temperate during the flight which reaches as low as -81 degrees. You will without a doubt at least lose consciousness in these conditions, which means you are then likely to fall from the plane as the wheels are lowered for landing.

In this episode Rich tells us about meeting a few miraculous survivors including Baswee - the first person to ever attempt doing this in 1946 when he was just 12 years old. He was fleeing Indonesia after the death of his parents. We also talk about when he met Osama, a 27-year-old palestinian from Gaza who hid beneath a plane from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.

But for the most part we talk about Carlito and Justin, who attempted this feat just a few years ago. It feels close to home because they were heading for London, which is actually the most popular destination for wheel well stowaways, with 16 in the last 25 years. 

Carlito was raised in an orphanage in Mozambique and Justin was from a township in Johannesburg, This is where the two of them met, became friends and lived in a tent together whilst trying to survive. 

And that’s the common thread in all these stories right. Behind every headline about migrants trying to make it to the UK, lies an individual story of someone driven by the dream of a better life.

I hope you enjoy our conversation today. Not only do we cover this important story, but we also talk storytelling with social purpose, we talk bias, privilege and using Rich’s film as a journalistic tribute to all those in search of safety.

Watch Rich's film here: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-man-who-fell-from-the-sky

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

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I’m bringing you this special episode of The Worldwide Tribe in response to what has been happening in recent weeks in Israel and Palestine. 

When I asked on social media what you wanted to hear about this topic , you said personal stories and also the history of the region so that’s what I’m bringing you.

My guest today is the amazing Yara Eid… a 20-year-old from Gaza. Yara left Gaza 5 years ago, after winning a scholarship to a boarding school in Wales. She now studies International relations at the University of Edinburgh and travels across the UK raising awareness about Palestine. 

I first learnt about Yara after seeing a viral video of her on Instagram last week. It was a raw, heartbreaking moment of her crying after hearing the news that her neighbours house in Gaza had been bombed, and not knowing whether her own family had survived the attack. The video stuck with me through all the posts, noise and outrage about the most recent developments in the region, as it was such a personal account of the human impact of what is happening. 

In this interview Yara brought me to tears about 8 times. The stories about her little brother, the death of her pet tortoise, what she witnessed at 14 years old, and the way she articulates her experience in her second language, just absolutely blew my mind. 

I truly feel that Yara’s personal account, as a human being, regardless of politics, nationality or your beliefs, needs to be heard and I hope that recording this podcast is the beginning of a friendship between us because I think she’s amazing. I hope you enjoy our conversation. 

To find out more, follow Yara at @eid_yara on Instagram.

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I’m bringing you this special episode of The Worldwide Tribe in response to what has been happening in recent weeks in Israel and Palestine. 

When I asked on social media what you wanted to hear about this topic , you said personal stories and also the history of the region so that’s what I’m bringing you.

My guest today is the amazing Yara Eid… a 20-year-old from Gaza. Yara left Gaza 5 years ago, after winning a scholarship to a boarding school in Wales. She now studies International relations at the University of Edinburgh and travels across the UK raising awareness about Palestine. 

I first learnt about Yara after seeing a viral video of her on Instagram last week. It was a raw, heartbreaking moment of her crying after hearing the news that her neighbours house in Gaza had been bombed, and not knowing whether her own family had survived the attack. The video stuck with me through all the posts, noise and outrage about the most recent developments in the region, as it was such a personal account of the human impact of what is happening. 

In this interview Yara brought me to tears about 8 times. The stories about her little brother, the death of her pet tortoise, what she witnessed at 14 years old, and the way she articulates her experience in her second language, just absolutely blew my mind. 

I truly feel that Yara’s personal account, as a human being, regardless of politics, nationality or your beliefs, needs to be heard and I hope that recording this podcast is the beginning of a friendship between us because I think she’s amazing. I hope you enjoy our conversation. 

To find out more, follow Yara at @eid_yara on Instagram.

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s Episode of the podcast brings you the stories of two incredible young women, Nujeen Mustafa and Marwa Mbayed.

I was introduced to Nujeen and Marwa by Humanity and Inclusion, a charity who support people with disabilities, who are also affected by poverty, conflict and disaster. Unfortunately, this is the reality for both my guests today. 

Nujeen was born with cerebral palsy. After leaving Syria aged 16 to escape ISIS, she made the 3500 mile journey to Germany in her wheelchair. She has since gone on to give a ted talk, co-write two books and become the first disabled person to brief the United Nations Security Council.

Marwa was 24 years old when she was in a car accident in Syria as a result of weapons being shot on the highway. She was immediately paralysed from the waist down. She too now lives in Germany.

These two stories are a strong reminder that anything can happen at any moment, to change the course of our lives forever, and that much is out of our control… but what is within our control is how we deal with it, and these two women set a shining example to us all.

To hear more from them:

Marwa's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marwa_mbayed/?hl=en

Nujeen's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nujeenmustafa/?hl=en

To find out more about Humanity and Inclusion and the incredible work they do to support people with disabilities: 

https://www.instagram.com/humanityinclusionuk/ 

https://humanity-inclusion.org.uk/en/index?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpdqDBhCSARIsAEUJ0hOoNfmW3Yg7L4mtLZ2e3DPr-33DkINRpBcEb0O2znjAvj_BIcKTIvsaAs4sEALw_wcB

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

To buy a tshirt or hoodie:

https://theworldwidetribe.teemill.com/

Support the show (https://www.justgiving.com/prism-worldwidetribe)

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This week I’m talking to Karina and Katie from an organisation called United Stateless - the only organisation in the United States of America to be advocating for stateless people. 

This is another topic that I had no idea about before Karina and Katie opened my eyes to what it means to be stateless.

Turns out there are around 200,000 people in America alone who fall into the category of stateless, and millions of people worldwide - a number that is difficult to estimate as half of the countries in the world don’t count these people...

One of these people is Karina herself, who was born in Soviet Ukraine, in the former Soviet Union. She left there when she was 4 to try and seek asylum in Canada or the US - both of which rejected her claims. Meanwhile the Soviet Union had ceased to exist, leaving her without a country. She currently lives stateless in the US. 

To find out more about United Stateless: www.unitedstateless.org.

To buy a T-shirt or Hoodie: https://theworldwidetribe.teemill.com/

To donate: https://www.justgiving.com/prism-worldwidetribe

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

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This week’s episode of the Worldwide Tribe podcast is about something we all need to know about... The Kafala System.

Kafala means sponsorship. It’s a system common across many Arab countries, where a citizen of that country can ‘sponsor’ someone from a poorer country to come and work for them. 

There are around 400,000 migrant domestic workers in Lebanon under the Kafala System right now. They come from countries such as Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Sudan, Ghana Kenya, and others, to work in private households as maids. They are excluded from Lebanese labour law and 94% of these women have their passports confiscated by their employers on arrival. Their immigration status is also legally bound to the sponsor, leaving them at risk of exploitation, physical, emotional and sexual abuse. 

Shockingly, two of these women die in Lebanon every single week. 

Whilst in Beirut a few months ago, I got an insight into this system when I met a group of Nigerian women desperately trying to escape it. 

This episode is for them, and for every woman trapped in hell in this blatant example of modern day slavery. The least we can do is listen to them, learn about their plight and join them in calling for the immediate abolishment of the Kafala System. 

To find out more:

https://thisislebanon.news/

To buy a tshirt:

https://theworldwidetribe.teemill.com/

To donate:

https://www.justgiving.com/prism-worldwidetribe

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

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You might remember that at the end of last summer, UK artist Banksy hit the news when he funded a new search and rescue boat in the Mediterranean. He painted it bright pink, with a girl in a life vest holding a heart-shaped safety buoy painted on the side, and it was named the Louise Michel after a French feminist anarchist. 

The Louise Michel has so far made one rescue mission, on which it brought 219 people to safety. In this episode you will hear the story of what happened on that rescue mission from two of its crew members, Vanessa and Dickon, or V and D as they call each other. V and D met on a previous Search and Rescue mission, fell in love and have gone on to set up their own organisation - Search and Rescue Relief.

We recorded this conversation at their home in South London before the most recent lockdown, where I also met their puppy Marmite…who makes an appearance in the episode too.

V and D will be sure to leave you totally in awe of what they have achieved and been through together. 

To find out more about V and D's work, follow them @sar_relief and check out their website here: https://sarrelief.org/

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

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Do you think of refugee camps as only existing in countries far away? Today’s episode of The Worldwide Tribe podcast is about one right here in the UK: Napier Barracks.

Up on a hill in the seaside town of Folkestone in Kent, lies a disused army barracks built in 1794. It’s red-brick buildings, surrounded by 10-ft fences topped with barbed wire, were actually due for demolition in 2021, until our Home Secretary, Priti Patel, made the decision to repurpose the barracks as accommodation for asylum seekers. 

Since September 2020, Napier Barracks has become home to 400 people who have recently arrived to the UK in the hope of finding safety. Instead, they find themselves living in conditions described as inhumane and deeply concerning by the many bodies of experts, groups and individuals who call for the camp’s immediate closure. 

Something disturbing is unfolding in this coastal town right now and I believe this should be at the forefront of our attention. 

In this episode I talk to two people: one of Napier’s first residents, a poet from Yemen who I will refer to as ‘S’ in order to protect his identity, and Maddie, founder of Humans for Rights Network, who has been collecting testimonials and evidence from Napier’s residents in the hope of getting their voices heard and their basic human needs met. 

Napier is one of two ex-army barracks being used in this way. Sign the petition to close Napier Barracks and Penally Barracks here: 

https://action.freedomfromtorture.org/close-the-barracks?utm_campaign=21DC011&utm_source=fftinsta&utm_medium=

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

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WELCOME BACK to Season 4 of the Worldwide Tribe Podcast!

It's been a while, so this episode covers some of the big events of the last few months...from a trip to Beirut after the explosion, to a brand new brother!

Spend some time with me, Jaz, sharing an update on lockdown, the recent Channel crossings, a new film, but most importantly...a new family member! Halfway through this episode I am joined by a very special, secret guest who also has a lot of wisdom to share. It's the most intimate episode yet, and made me both laugh and cry.

I’d love to know your thoughts and what you’d like to hear more of in the rest of Season 4. I already have some amazing guests lined up but I’m always open to suggestions and questions. To get in touch send me a direct message on Instagram, @theworldwidetribe. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it, rate it and leave a review, it helps more people find this podcast, and it helps me to keep bringing you these stories.

 The more people who come on this journey with us, the more connected we all become, the more we unite as one Worldwide Tribe. 

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

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My guest this week is Manwar Ali - a former radical Jihadist who is now a leading campaigner in Britain against violence and extremism, and works with the UK police and Home Office to prevent radicalisation in young people.

Whilst studying in London in the late 1970’s, Manwar gradually became radicalised and was involved in radical Jihad for 15 years, recruiting others, fundraising and fighting for the cause. He is now one of the only scholars in the UK who has been directly involved in violent jihad and he draws on these experiences to address issues of extremism through education, social projects, charitable events and open discussion . 

Manwar and his wife came to my house for this conversation and it was very emotional for both Manwar and I. There's something really powerful about owning your mistakes and going through such a huge transition. Manwar is sincere and I truly believe anyone listening to this will understand what happened to him and the decisions he made. Manwar continues to teach Islam and now encourages anyone drawn to violence to let go of anger and hatred and instead see the beauty, goodness and truth in others. I hope you enjoy this eye opening and educational episode.

To support this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe

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