Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Ep 15 | Kolima’s Story Part 1 – Rohingya: The First Stitch
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Ep 15 | Kolima’s Story Part 1 – Rohingya: The First Stitch
What does it mean to learn survival before you have words for it?
In the first chapter of Kolima’s oral history, we meet a Rohingya woman whose early life was shaped by family, restraint, and the quiet labor expected of girls as they grew into womanhood. Her story begins in Rakhine State, Myanmar, where daily life unfolded inside the boundaries of tradition, poverty, and increasing restriction.
Kolima speaks about growing up, reaching maturity, and how her world narrowed as expectations changed. Education faded from reach. Movement became limited. Skills learned at home—especially sewing—slowly became a way to stay useful, to contribute, and to imagine a future that still had shape.
Part 1 is about beginnings. Not displacement yet. Not the camps. But the first stitch—how women’s work is learned early, often silently, and how those skills later become lifelines when everything else is taken away.
This oral history was recorded live inside the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh in partnership with the Ziabul Hossain Foundation, whose work supports Rohingya women through education, documentation, and community-based programs.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode
00:00 Introduction to Kolima00:55 Childhood and family life in Rakhine State17:33 Growing into womanhood19:22 Getting married at 15
Why This Story Matters
Rohingya women are often spoken about only after displacement—rarely before. Kolima’s story reminds us that long before camps, borders, and aid systems, women were already navigating limits placed on their bodies, movement, and futures.
For female heads of households, these early skills are not incidental. They become the difference between dependence and survival. Between silence and self-reliance.
Listening to Kolima helps us understand how displacement doesn’t begin at the border—it begins much earlier, in the lives women are taught to live.
The Archive Speaks centers the voices of refugee and internally displaced women leading households—stories often missing from policy, media, and historical record.
These oral histories reflect personal memory, shaped by time, trauma, and survival. The Refugee Archive preserves these stories without political alignment or editorial interference—so women can speak in their own words, on their own terms.
Get full access to The Refugee Archive: Global Center for Displaced FHH at therefugeearchive.substack.com/subscribe
View all episodes
By The Refugee Archive TeamWhat does it mean to learn survival before you have words for it?
In the first chapter of Kolima’s oral history, we meet a Rohingya woman whose early life was shaped by family, restraint, and the quiet labor expected of girls as they grew into womanhood. Her story begins in Rakhine State, Myanmar, where daily life unfolded inside the boundaries of tradition, poverty, and increasing restriction.
Kolima speaks about growing up, reaching maturity, and how her world narrowed as expectations changed. Education faded from reach. Movement became limited. Skills learned at home—especially sewing—slowly became a way to stay useful, to contribute, and to imagine a future that still had shape.
Part 1 is about beginnings. Not displacement yet. Not the camps. But the first stitch—how women’s work is learned early, often silently, and how those skills later become lifelines when everything else is taken away.
This oral history was recorded live inside the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh in partnership with the Ziabul Hossain Foundation, whose work supports Rohingya women through education, documentation, and community-based programs.
What You’ll Hear in This Episode
00:00 Introduction to Kolima00:55 Childhood and family life in Rakhine State17:33 Growing into womanhood19:22 Getting married at 15
Why This Story Matters
Rohingya women are often spoken about only after displacement—rarely before. Kolima’s story reminds us that long before camps, borders, and aid systems, women were already navigating limits placed on their bodies, movement, and futures.
For female heads of households, these early skills are not incidental. They become the difference between dependence and survival. Between silence and self-reliance.
Listening to Kolima helps us understand how displacement doesn’t begin at the border—it begins much earlier, in the lives women are taught to live.
The Archive Speaks centers the voices of refugee and internally displaced women leading households—stories often missing from policy, media, and historical record.
These oral histories reflect personal memory, shaped by time, trauma, and survival. The Refugee Archive preserves these stories without political alignment or editorial interference—so women can speak in their own words, on their own terms.
Get full access to The Refugee Archive: Global Center for Displaced FHH at therefugeearchive.substack.com/subscribe