Megan Culhane Galbraith is a writer, visual artist, and an adoptee. She’s the founder of the Never Hush Workshops for Adoptees. Her debut hybrid memoir-in-essays, The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book, was published by Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press in May 2021. Her work was Notable in Best American Essays 2021 and 2017, and she is the Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Maisarah Faisal is the Special Assistant to the Executive Director at Sunway Center for Planetary Health, Sunway University in Malaysia. She's a graduate of International Relations with Mandarin from the University of Nottingham, Malaysia. She has experience in research and analysis, new media communications and youth engagement, in both the public and private sector. She's also a youth activist. She says: If we're only stuck in our bubble, in our comfortable lives then we won't be able to empathise.

Danuta Hinc is a Polish American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She holds an MA in Philology from the University of Gdańsk where she won the Polish National Competition for best dissertation is the Humanities. She received an M.F.A. in Writing and Literature from Bennington College, where she was awarded the Barry Hannah Merit Scholarship in Fiction. She teaches writing at the University of Maryland. She is the author of We Were Twins which we’re going to discuss today. She is a Principal Lecturer in the Department of English at University of Maryland where she teaches writing.

Hawa Sabriye works for UNICEF Somalia as an Education Specialist. She has over 7 years of experience in education/teaching, humanitarian aid and international development. She holds a BA in English Literature and Human Geography, a BA and MA in Education, and Graduate Diplomas in Refugee and Migration Studies and Post-Secondary Education: Community, Culture, and Policy. Hawa is also a doctorate candidate at the University of Toronto in the International Education Leadership & Policy program. Her research focuses on trauma-informed teaching and learning in Somalia. Hawa’s interests include Afrocentric education, reading, and water painting. She says: Fiction can offer a great escape, introduce us to new ideas and knowledge, and allows us to practice empathy. Often, the contexts we work in are foreign to us, and stories, through characters can help to better understand these contexts.

Doug Mercado has worked in the field of international humanitarian assistance and post-disaster recovery over the past 32 years on assignments with the United Nations, USAID, OAS & NGOs. He currently holds the position of visiting lecturer at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. He says, “Works of fiction have their part in helping the world to understand what’s going in a land far away. They bring the reality of a humanitarian crisis to others who may not experience that situation. Fiction is a personal account of the characters.”

Ms April Pham is a Senior Gender Advisor and the Head of Gender Unit in the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. She has over 25 years of experience in social justice, human rights, gender equality, and the prevention and response to violence against women/gender-based violence in development and humanitarian settings. Twitter: @MynameisApes

She says, “People need to make visible the experiences and voices of women and girls and be their champions given that this is half of the population of the world. All humanitarian workers should have menstrual hygiene as their first order of business, if we all did this, this’d be a really good start.”

Matteo Fraschini Koffi is a freelance journalist who writes, photographs and produces documentaries for radio and TV. He works for Italian and foreign media focusing exclusively on Sub-Saharan Africa. He has won the Premiolino award and published a book-diary, “Fields of red gold,"  about his experience in the ghetto of Rignano (Apulia), and his autobiography, "The black elephant calling, confessions of a journey in search of one's own identity."

He says, “Be curious. People have to be curious about what is inside and outside of them and their surroundings. If you just don’t care, it’s easier for war to continue. Try to understand the context, the people, the history of a certain situation by talking to people. Sometimes it reaches to the higher levels and this dialogue could end a lot of suffering.”

Delphine Vakunta is a Cameroonian-American communication and public relations professional in the international humanitarian and development affairs field. Her work spans the African Development Bank, the United Nations, NGOs, and the private sector.

She says, “We should all strive to prevent humanitarian crises by thinking about what we can individually do at our respective levels. For me, this has a lot to do with making investments in organizations and projects that center youth and young people. Why? Because we know that when youth, young people, and women thrive, societies and communities can really soar.”

Aida Mengistu is the Deputy Head of the Inter Agency Standing Committee’s Peer-to-Peer Support Project which provides targeted support to humanitarian leaders in country operations. She is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a mother of three kids.

She says, "It’s important to understand the day-to-day life of people caught up in these difficult situations. With fiction, you can incorporate their realities into the story in a way that's more palpable. You can imagine yourself in that situation and have more compassion and empathy for the people affected by a crisis. I think that's incredibly powerful. I know it’s fiction but it’s based on people’s lives and it can communicate to the rest of the world what's happening, what are some of the concerns and important for these communities.

Sébastien Trives is a French national currently working for the NGO ACTED in Paris. He for the Humanitarian Advisory Team to the Famine Relief Fund, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNRWA, UNAMA and OSCE. He holds a M.A. in international relations, a B.A. in international affairs and history, and a diploma in European studies.

He says, “99 Years in Logar, describes life through the eyes of a child. It describes family life, the tension between tradition and modernity. The conflict is there, but it's never central. It provides this background of Afghanistan in a very endearing light. We have this tendency in humanitarian action to see people as beneficiaries of aid, victims, people without agency.