A team of Westminster graduates have created ‘Let's Talk: Students and Refugee Activism’, a three-episode podcast, available on Anchor and Spotify. Dr Annapurna Menon, who has recently completed a PhD in Politics, has been the Head of the Podcast Team, with Marie-Fatou Sommer, recent International Relations and Development BA graduate, helping to organise and host the project. They worked with Teenasai Balamu, freelancer musician and audio-engineer, who was responsible for audio editing.
Beside Anchor and Spotify, the podcast is available on Blackboard via the reading list for the International Relations and Development BA course at Westminster. It consists of three 25-minute episodes, each one hosted by students or alumni.
The series followed a week-long workshop “Refugee Rights and Humanitarian Action”, organised by Dr Ipshita Basu, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, where students could learn from Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) professionals, diplomats, young refugee activists and scholars from South Asia, USA and UK. The project aimed to connect with activists who have dedicated their careers to support refugees and displaced people and to explore the impact student activism has within humanitarian spaces.
Marie-Fatou Sommer said: “Podcasts offer a unique way to connect with people and their stories. Hearing someone’s voice and how they choose to tell their story can be very powerful. This is particularly important for conversations concerning displaced people and migrants who are often generalised and objectified in mainstream media. Through our podcast, we hope to stand against such tendencies by giving displaced people, and refugee activists a platform to connect and share their experiences with the young people and students at our university.”
Episode one features a conversation between Annapurna Menon and a Myanmar Refugee Activist called Lucky, covering her life experience in refugee activism, the gendered impact of being a refugee, the role of youth and students in refugee activism, and why and how students can get involved.
Episode two features a conversation between Marie-Fatou Sommer and Restless Beings, a human rights NGO. They discuss the work of Restless Beings, its origin, challenges and success, and its relationship to refugees, government and other international organisations.
Episode three is a discussion among the Podcast Team, talking about their experience producing the podcast and participating in the related workshop as part of the module entitled Learning from NGOs in International Context. The conversation is a reflection on the previous episodes and how university spaces could be used for refugees.
Talking about the significance of the Podcast, Annapurna Menon and Matre-Fatou Sommer explained: “We aim to humanise the topic of migration and inspire a more critical evaluation of the narratives we hear from the media or government about those who migrated or were forced to flee their home country. At the University of Westminster, we believe in centering people and their own stories which is what this podcast seeks to do. The podcast itself is reflective of the University’s ethos – we ensured that there was diverse representation in the team, all guests were compensated for their time and , and we tried to work in a non-hierarchical manner.”
Listen to the ‘Let's Talk: Students and Refugee Activism’ podcast on Anchor or Spotify.
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