Rise Up & Talk: Refugee Radio, Ep. 2
Testimonies from South Sudanese women rebuilding their lives in Zone 2 of Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement and an ex-rebel soldier who fled the violence of his past to seek peace in Uganda.
In the second episode of the Bidi Bidi Podcast, host Richard Akim introduces the audience to Mary Knight and Betty Ede who managed to evade the various militias terrorizing small hamlets and villages across South Sudan and escape across the border only to find a tenuous and sometimes cruel sanctuary in Uganda.
Host Richard Akim guides us through a world of human insecurity to understand how political gamesmanship between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir’s and Vice President Riek Machar devolved into ethnic factionalism, civil war and genocide, forcing around a quarter of the population to flee the world’s youngest nation-state toward uncertain futures in Sudanese, Ethiopian and Ugandan refugee camps. Akim describes the mass exodus as “a sea of humans and emotions escaping the madness and bloodshed”.
Finally, we are provided an inside look into life as a rebel soldier from Kemish Likambo, an ex-guerrilla who was recruited by friends to join one of South Sudan's dozens of militias. He reveals horrors perpetuated, moral dilemmas, life-and-death decisions, and his ultimate escape from that life toward peace and redemption in Uganda.
Rise Up & Talk, Episode II
Mary Knight, 27, is a South Sudanese student from Yei County, Central Equatoria State. Mary was in boarding school when civil war broke out in 2016. Separated from her family in an instant, she ran in fear––fleeing in multiple directions, joining roving bands of refugees who were also trying to evade the various rebel groups and seek asylum in Uganda. Despite living in exile with a quarter of a million other refugees, she says she has gained a clearer perspective of the future.
Betty Ede, 38, lives in Bidi Bidi refugee settlement, Zone 2. Prior to 2016, she taught school and ran a small business in Yei County, South Sudan. At the height of the conflict, she lost her nephew to a treatable illness due to a lack of medicine at the local hospital. The experience prompted Betty to gather her children and walk to Uganda. After arriving in the settlement, Betty and other women formed a group called Togoleta Refugee Women to address gender violence in Bidi Bidi and other camps of the region.
South Sudanese refugee producer, filmmaker, community activist and co-founder of Bidi Bidi Media Lab. Richard's work explores conflict, statelessness and life in northern Uganda’s refugee archipelago.
Award-winning Honduran animator and journalist who received the 2017 Gabriel García Márquez award for Latin American Journalism for his graphic novella "El Hábito de la Mordaza" ("The Habit of Silence"). He is founder of Bilbao Media Lab and co-producer of the Bidi Bidi Media Lab.
