Walk Talk Listen Podcast

In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Maurice Bloem speaks with Peter Prove, Director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs at the World Council of Churches (WCC). Growing up in an Australian Lutheran family in which becoming a pastor seemed almost a family tradition, Peter chose a different path through law, international human rights and ecumenical advocacy. He reflects on how those experiences changed him, from working at the intersection of trade and human rights to encountering people whose courage and suffering continue to shape his understanding of justice. One particularly moving memory comes from a displaced teenage girl in northern Iraq who told him that the violence had destroyed her future. Peter also shares how encounters with local religious communities helped inspire practical cooperation, including efforts to make Iraq's school curriculum more inclusive.

The conversation explores the difference between interfaith dialogue and what Peter calls diapraxis — working together on shared challenges — as well as the contributions and contradictions of religion in peacebuilding. Peter reflects on Colombia's peace processes, the importance of relationships that outlast institutions, and why young people must be recognized as actors in the present rather than merely leaders of the future. When discussing the Inner Development Goals, he highlights humility and self-awareness, while warning that personal growth must never become an excuse to delay urgent action. He also shares his appreciation for the beauty and many voices of a single violin in Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's Passacaglia in G minor, and reflects on how decades of encounters with extraordinary people have changed him.

Learn more about Peter Prove on LinkedIn and the World Council of Churches. Follow WCC on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and BlueSky.

Don't only listen to Peter's choice of music, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's Passacaglia in G minor, but also the songs picked by other guests on the Walk Talk Listen Spotify playlist.

Share your feedback on this episode through our Walk Talk Listen Feedback link – your thoughts matter!

Support Walk Talk Listen by following the 100 Mile Hunger Walk on Facebook and Instagram.

Visit 100mile.org or mauricebloem.com for more episodes and information.

Check out the special Walk Talk Listen series Enough for All and learn more about the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities (JLI).

Shahin Ashraf MBE joins Walk Talk Listen for a deeply personal conversation that begins in Handsworth, Birmingham, where she grew up in a multicultural neighborhood shaped by Jamaican, Sikh, Hindu and Kashmiri communities. Her parents had migrated from Azad Kashmir, and although her family experienced poverty and hardship, Shahin remembers that “the biggest thing we had was each other.” From the age of nine, she helped care for her father, navigating medical systems and learning unfamiliar terminology with help from the local library. By eleven, she had started a small business helping people fill out forms, partly to earn money for taxi fares to visit her father. She also remembers the kindness of neighbors, teachers and religious leaders from different faith traditions who supported her family. These experiences helped shape her lifelong commitment to justice, dignity and standing up for others.

Today Shahin is Head of Global Advocacy and Research at Islamic Relief Worldwide, bringing more than 25 years of experience in humanitarian action, women's rights, refugee support, climate justice and civil society leadership. The conversation moves between her personal experiences and wider questions about faith, identity, international solidarity, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Inner Development Goals. Answering the previous guest's question about unexpected hope, Shahin recalls girls and women in Afghanistan continuing to pursue education despite enormous restrictions. She also shares how experiencing anti-Muslim prejudice helped propel her into local politics in Solihull, where she became an elected councillor, and describes confronting discriminatory rhetoric in the council chamber shortly before the recording. Her message to listeners is simple but powerful: “Do not let anyone make you feel smaller.” Music brings us back to the cultural richness of her childhood, from Bhangra and reggae to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up.

Learn more about Shahin's work through Islamic Relief Worldwide and connect with her on LinkedIn (Shahin Ashraf MBE), Facebook (Shahin Ashraf) and Instagram (@Shahin_ashra1).

Don't only listen to Shahin's musical choices, including Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, but also the songs picked by other guests on the Walk Talk Listen Spotify playlist.

Share your feedback on this episode through our Walk Talk Listen Feedback link – your thoughts matter!

Support Walk Talk Listen by following the 100 Mile Hunger Walk on Facebook and Instagram.

Visit 100mile.org or mauricebloem.com for more episodes and information.

Check out the special Walk Talk Listen series Enough for All and learn more about the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities (JLI).

Sam Daley-Harris joins Walk Talk Listen to reflect on an unlikely journey that began in Miami, Florida, where he grew up in an observant Jewish household and discovered a love of music that eventually led him to play percussion in the Miami Philharmonic Orchestra and teach high school music. Experiences around the deaths of a friend and Robert F. Kennedy prompted Sam to begin asking questions that would stay with him: “Why am I here? What am I here to do? What’s my purpose?” A 1977 presentation on ending world hunger then challenged his assumption that hunger was inevitable. Sam realized that while he might feel hopeless about human nature, there was one human nature he could do something about: his own.

That realization eventually contributed to Sam founding RESULTS in 1980, followed by his work with the Microcredit Summit Campaign and Civic Courage. In the conversation, Sam explores what he calls “transformational advocacy”: not only working to change policies and systems, but creating the support that enables people to do things they never thought they could do and, in the process, see themselves differently. Maurice and Sam also talk about younger generations, faith and spirituality, fear, cynicism and hope, the Sustainable Development Goals and Inner Development Goals, and why organizations sometimes underestimate what volunteers are capable of. Near the end, Sam asks whether something in the conversation might have “sparked some excitement, sparked some hope, sparked some new sense of possibility.” Music, fittingly, remains part of his story, with Sam choosing Dan Hill’s Hold On and Peter Mayer’s Holy Now as pieces that speak to who he is.

Support Walk Talk Listen by following the 100 Mile Hunger Walk on Facebook and Instagram.

Visit 100mile.org or mauricebloem.com for more episodes and information.

Check out the special Walk Talk Listen series Enough for All and learn more about the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities (JLI).

Dr. Elisabet “Lisa” le Roux joins Walk Talk Listen from Stellenbosch, South Africa, and takes us back to her childhood as the youngest of four children, growing up in a home where faith, theology, books and conversations were part of everyday life. Her father was a minister and later taught theology at Stellenbosch University, while her parents modeled a conviction that became a kind of guiding light for Lisa: your life should make a positive difference, even if that difference is small. Lisa also recalls becoming aware of gender inequality remarkably early, including a childhood encounter with a library registration form that made her wonder why women, but not men, were defined by whether they were married.

That early journey eventually took Lisa to the mountains of Lesotho, where living alongside people affected by HIV/AIDS profoundly shaped the direction of her life, and later into nearly two decades of research on religion, gender equality and violence against women and girls. Today, through her work with Stellenbosch University and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI), Lisa continues to explore the complicated role of religion: faith communities can help challenge violence and harmful norms, while at the same time sometimes reinforcing them. Lisa talks about listening, participatory and feminist approaches to research, and what researchers themselves must be willing to learn and unlearn. She also reflects on hope and why, when the problems of the world feel overwhelming, she intentionally chooses to “go small picture” and focus on the difference we can make in the lives immediately around us. Her musical choice is Toto’s Africa.

Andrés Martínez-García is a psychologist and peacebuilder whose professional journey began with people directly affected by Colombia's decades of violence. Born and raised in Bogotá, Andrés recalls a happy childhood while recognizing how much his parents did to protect him and his twin brother from dangers they did not always fully understand at the time. His first job as a psychologist brought him face-to-face with that other Colombian reality, providing psychosocial support to landmine survivors and victims of violence. The experience convinced him that addressing trauma alone was not enough without also confronting the conditions that produce violence. It eventually led him into peacebuilding and to a lifelong interest in how psychology, peace, religion and spirituality intersect. A particularly formative moment came when a patient asked him to pray with her, leaving the young psychologist wondering where professional boundaries ended and the spiritual dimensions of healing began.

Today, Andrés is Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities (JLI), where he helps lead the LAC Regional Learning Hub and works at the intersection of faith, mental health, evidence and locally led development. In this conversation, we explore why sustainable peace requires attention to trauma and personal and community healing; the religious diversity of Latin America and the Caribbean; what younger generations may be teaching us about spirituality, institutions and connection; and why local organizations and religious actors need to help determine the questions that research asks rather than simply participate in someone else's agenda. Andrés also responds to Doug Fountain's question about loneliness, reflects on his hopes and concerns for his daughter in an increasingly technological world, and explains why Bob Marley's Redemption Song speaks so deeply to his work and who he is. Before we finish, he adds Mercedes Sosa's Gracias a la Vida, another song that holds pain and suffering together with hope.

Doug Fountain has spent nearly four decades working at the intersection of Christian mission, health systems and global development, but his journey toward that work began much earlier. Growing up in Oregon, Doug's life changed when his mother became seriously ill when he was nine and eventually spent much of the last 20 years of her life bedridden. Caring for her alongside his father taught him about caregiving, responsibility and the realities of health, while a painful response from their church also forced him to wrestle with what faith should and should not look like. In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, Doug reflects on wanting to become a missionary doctor, discovering instead a passion for public policy and systems, and eventually coming full circle into global health. He also shares how eight years living and working in Uganda fundamentally reshaped his understanding of international development: not arriving with solutions, but being invited to come alongside people who are themselves responsible for the change they want to make.

Today Doug is Executive Director of Christian Connections for International Health (CCIH), where his work focuses on strengthening the visibility, quality and connectedness of faith-based health actors. Our conversation explores what faith communities can contribute to holistic health, where churches and faith-based organizations sometimes get things wrong, what genuinely locally led health systems require, and why funding and accountability need to be much more closely aligned. We also talk about trust between communities, institutions, governments and faith actors; Doug's concern about increasing loneliness and disconnection; what the SDGs have and have not accomplished; and why he finds the Inner Development Goals useful for thinking about the capacities leaders need to confront complex problems. Along the way, Doug shares a beautiful childhood story about a teacher and a box of geography flashcards, reflects on music and human connection, and leaves us with a challenge that runs throughout the conversation: we can do better, and we must do better.

Kathryn (Kati) Kraft is a sociologist whose work explores faith, child spirituality and human flourishing, particularly in contexts of vulnerability and displacement. A self-described third culture kid, Kati was born in the United States, spent much of her childhood in Brazil, later lived in Syria and Lebanon, and eventually made her home in England. In this episode of Walk Talk Listen, she reflects on growing up in a deeply Christian environment, how friendships with Muslims in Syria challenged and expanded her understanding of faith, and how asking questions rather than making assumptions eventually shaped her career as a researcher. Now Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences at the University of East London, Kati previously served as Senior Research Advisor for Faith and Development at World Vision International.

Our conversation turns especially to what adults can learn when we genuinely listen to children. Kati describes research involving 658 children whose answers about what mattered to them came back to something remarkably simple: love and loving relationships. We talk about children's spirituality, human flourishing, why adults and researchers are often not very good at listening to children, and why children's experiences cannot always be reduced to indicators or statistics. Kati also reflects on the SDGs and Inner Development Goals, the role of spirituality in development, and her recently edited open-access book, Children, Religion, and Development: Perspectives on Spirituality in Practice, which brings together scholars from different religious traditions while asking what practitioners across traditions can learn from them. The conversation also becomes personal as Kati talks about transition, hope, a memorable experience in an Orthodox church, and the song Faith More Precious Than Gold, which found her during a difficult moment.

Listener Engagement:

Follow Us: