This is an episode and a story that I’ve been wanting to share for nearly two years... and I am so happy to finally be able to do so! This episode is about my Eritrean foster brother Mez and his younger brother Josi. A few years after Mez left Eritrea to avoid compulsory military service, so too did his little brother Josi. Josi is two years younger than Mez and they grew up doing everything together. They wore the same clothes, liked all the same things and Mez described him as being his little shadow. So despite Mez’s warnings of how dangerous it was, it’s no wonder that when he also became ..read more

In today’s episode I speak to the wonderful Imad Al Arnab of Imad’s Syrian Kitchen. Imad has such an amazing story. He was a successful restaurateur in his home city of Damascus, Syria where he owned multiple restaurants, several juice bars and coffee shops. After they were all bombed and it became apparent he had to leave, he made the dangerous journey to the UK, where at first he worked in a car wash and as a car salesman. It didn’t take long for him to go on to open his very successful restaurant in Central London - Imad’s Syrian Kitchen.. He’s now written a recipe book also called Imad’s S ..read more

In today’s episode we’re exploring what it’s like to be displaced and part of the LGBTQ+ community. This episode is dedicated to everyone who sits at this intersection, and faces not only the challenges of being an asylum seeker or a refugee, but also the discrimination that comes with their sexuality or gender identity. We will hear from three people. A new friend of mine Hiba - the first openly trans filmmaker in Pakistan and is now living in London and seeking asylum in the UK. My other two guests today I’ll be keeping anonymous. One of them, we’ll call him A - runs a shelter for LGBTQ+ re ..read more

In this episode we hear the incredible story of Ayman Alhussein. Ayman is an actor, cinematographer and co-writer of amazing new short film, Matar, directed by Hassan Akkad, starring Ahmed Malek and available to watch online, for free on Waterbear. The film Matar tells the story of an undocumented delivery driver in London and highlights the challenges of navigating hostile environment Britain and its broken asylum system. This podcast episode brings you the incredible real life story behind the film. Ayman’s story.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

This International Women's Day, It's only right that I bring you the story of one of the most incredible women that I know... Khalida Popal. Khalida grew up playing football with her brothers in Afghanistan, and even though she faced serious discrimination from her community as a result, she went on to form the Afghan women’s football league with her friends. Despite death threats at the hands of extremist and anti-women's-rights groups, she went on to be the first woman on the board of the Afghan football federation, the first female employee of the federation, and the captain of the Women’s ..read more

Welcome to the FINAL episode of The Journey! Today’s episode is designed to speak to that rhetoric that refugees or asylum seekers might be a burden... that they take from us, economically, culturally, or whatever that fear might be. I’m honoured to be able to share multiple examples of how much we have to gain from welcoming refugees and asylum seekers with open arms.  This episode came to be because along this journey we met many people working in grassroots refugee response, who have lived experience of migration themselves. By this I mean, refugees, people who have been displaced th ..read more

Welcome back to Episode FIVE of The Journey - a 6-part podcast series following migration routes from Africa, The Middle East and Ukraine, to northern Europe. Today’s episode is about what life looks like for people once they make it to their final destination. What is life like in their host country? What’s new and difficult? What does integration look like or even mean? What can we, as listeners do to help with this process? We begin this episode in Athens where we hear from the wonderful Murtaza from Afghanistan. We also hear from Anneke - founder of UK-bassed befriending service Host Nat ..read more

In his memoir about leaving Syria to life in the UK, my friend Hassan (also a previous podcast guest), shared the terrifying experience he had when attempting to reach Greece by boat. His rubber dinghy was approached by three masked men on a bigger boat, who stole their petrol tank and violently pushed them away from the shore.  What Hassan experienced was a pushback. What are pushbacks you might ask, well…in short, a pushback is when refugees and migrants are forced back over a border, generally immediately after they have crossed it. It is not just illegal to send someone back without ..read more

Welcome to Episode THREE of The Journey - a 6-part podcast series following migration routes from Africa, The Middle East and Ukraine, to northern Europe. So far this season we’ve explored the reasons why people are leaving their countries, and taken a look at what life looks like in the first countries they arrive to. As a result of how difficult things can be in that first country, we also know that many people are forced to continue their journey until they find a country where they can live in safety…  But what do these journey’s look like? How do people cross borders, often without ..read more

Welcome back to Episode TWO of The Journey - a 6-part podcast series following migration routes from Africa, The Middle East and Ukraine, to northern Europe. People often ask me  ‘Why don’t refugees stay in the first safe country they land in? It’s a comment I see a lot on social media and one I feel there is a lot of judgment and misinformation around. This episode is designed to answer exactly that. I’d like everyone who genuinely wonders about this question, to be able to listen to this and fully understand why a person’s journey can go on to span many countries. We’ll be hearing fro ..read more