Awale is a multilingual storyteller born in Somalia and raised in Saudi Arabia after having to leave Somalia due to the Civil War. Well known for his spoken word poetry, Awale has performed on stages all over the world. Awale also has a strong passion for advocating for the rights of refugees, and social justice. Awale is interviewed by SYN volunteer Amira Mahmoud who is an emerging media maker. They discuss his personal journey, how Awale started writing, his involvement in refugee and migrant communities and childhood memories. Stay tuned at the end of the episode for a moving poetry reading in Arabic and English, as a dedication to Gaza.

Content Warning - Confronting discussion of death in the context of war.

A translation for Awale's poem in Arabic about Hargeisa:

"You are the princess of my dreams ... Oo no .. you are the bride of my fantasy
Here I am sailing towards you... while I am lost in my imagination
I am captured by the army of your love … and My foreignness deepened my wounds
I crossed the sea carried by...the ship of longing and love
I have lost my words.. My poems...can you listen to my excuses? Can you forgive me?
Here are some of my melodies… and some of my love formed as verses
Soon soon I will come…and I will jump of joy between your alleys
Hargeisa you are my history ... and you are my most beautiful stories
In you I have witnessed the light in my beginnings .. and surely I will witness my end".

Awale's Links: مدونة عواليات |  Instagram | Surviving the Somali Civil War - Barefaced Stories Performance

Connect with Amira on LinkedIn.

Note - audio transcriptions provided on streaming services are automatically generated and may contain errors.

Stories of Community Resilience is produced by SYN Media and is supported by a Content Grant from Community Broadcasting Foundation. Purple Planet Music - Track ‘Sunbeam’ Used under creative commons license. 'Alf Leila wa Leila / A Thousand and One Nights' Performed by Umm Kulthum (1969) - أم كلثوم licenced in the free public domain. 

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