A volunteer at the Maldivian Red Crescent highlights the importance of trust and language for migrants during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic was tough on everyone. For migrants, it was particularly hard. They lost jobs and loved ones. They often have no access to health care and everywhere they go, there are language barriers. Who could they turn to? Who could they trust in a world full of conflicting information, where they could be arrested or deported at any time?
To get answers, we turn to Kamal Hosen, a volunteer at the Maldivian Red Crescent who talks about how important it is for migrants to find something they can trust, someone who speaks their language.
It’s the stuff of science fiction: machines that make decisions about who and when to kill. Referred to as “autonomous weapons”, they’re already in use to some degree. But as more sophisticated systems are being developed we wanted to an expert in the field about whether such systems comply with international humanitarian law and what it means for humanity to give machines the power over human life and death.
In this episode, we talk with humanitarian communicator Kathy Mueller who produced our first magazine podcast series, The Wildfire Diaries, about massive wildfires in Northern Canada in 2017. We talk about that series, her many international missions, and the big changes in humanitarian communications since she began with the Canadian Red Cross almost 20 years ago.
In this episode, we talk about the power of storytelling to inform and inspire. “Storytelling is a fundamental aspect of human communication,” says our guest Prodip, a volunteer and multi-media storyteller for the Bangladesh Red Crescent. “It inspires us to be a hero of our own community.” We also speak with one such community hero, Dalal al-Taji, a longtime volunteer and advocate for inclusion of people with disabilities in emergencies response. “In disasters. persons with disabilities sometimes get forgotten.”
Red Cross Red Crescent magazine 
