Displaced

In 1942, nine year-old Krishnan Gurumurthy fled to India from Burma with his family. It was just after the Japanese invasion, and they had just missed the final ferries out of Rangoon. So his family travelled by a treacherous land route -- a 1,500 mile journey that took over 42 days. Years later, Krishnan moved from India to the U.K., worked as a radiologist, and had a three kids: Krishnan, Geeta, and Ravi. Today, Ravi interviews his father about his journey from Burma to India and how his experience of displacement shaped the rest of his life. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Glenna Gordon is a documentary photographer and photojournalist. She's been commissioned by the New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. She’s photographed a range of subjects, from Muslim women writing romance novels in Boko Haram territory in Northern Nigeria to the American women of the alt-right.  She’s also Grant Gordon’s older sister. This week, Grant interviews Glenna about her work in Nigeria, her current project documenting the alt-right, and the danger of a single narrative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The cruel irony of climate change is that it disproportionately impacts those who have contributed least to global warming—the world’s poorest and most marginalized groups. For Mary Robinson—former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, president of the Mary Robinson Foundation–Climate Justice, and the former, first female President of Ireland—rectifying these injustices is an essential part of the international effort to address climate change. This week, Ravi and Mary Robinson discuss the links between climate change-related displacement, human rights, and global equality. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Join our conversation about climate change by tweeting your thoughts to @grantmgordon and @rgurumurthy. Make sure you include the hashtag #DisplacedPodcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Although cross-border displacement affects local communities, international efforts to address it typically take place at the highest levels. How can affected communities make their voices heard in these intergovernmental negotiations? This week, Ravi and Grant sit down with Walter Kaelin, Envoy of the Chair at the Platform on Disaster Displacement and former Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons. Kaelin has been at the forefront of these intergovernmental processes, and he discusses how they've sometimes generated solutions - and sometimes been detached from them. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Join our conversation about climate change by tweeting your thoughts to @grantmgordon and @rgurumurthy. Make sure you include the hashtag #DisplacedPodcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As climate change causes rapid and large-scale migration, countries already facing environmental challenges become increasingly vulnerable to instability and humanitarian crisis. Sherri Goodman, Senior Fellow at the Wilson Center and former U.S. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security, describes climate change as a threat multiplier. This week she joins Grant and Ravi to discuss how climate change is linked to conflicts happening now, and what it might lead to in the future. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Join our conversation about climate change by tweeting your thoughts to @grantmgordon and @rgurumurthy. Make sure you include the hashtag #DisplacedPodcast! One last thing: we are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An estimated 26 million people a year were internally displaced by disasters and hazards between 2008 and 2015. These numbers will just get worse as climate change exacerbates the effects of natural disasters, increasing both internal and cross-border displacement. That is why we are releasing a series of episodes this season focusing on climate change. This week we kick off our series with Jane McAdam, Scientia Professor of Law and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales. McAdam explains why people displaced by climate change don’t have refugee status — and how we can use existing legal frameworks to ensure their protection. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Join our conversation about climate change by tweeting your thoughts to @grantmgordon and @rgurumurthy. Make sure you include the hashtag #DisplacedPodcast! One last thing: we are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Throughout our series on refugee resettlement, we’ve referenced Canada’s system of private sponsorship as an overall success - but how does it actually work? And what can other countries learn from it as they build their own resettlement infrastructures? This week, Grant and Ravi get a close-up view of Canada’s resettlement system with Ahmed Hussen, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship for the Government of Canada. Minister Hussen provides insight into the history of resettlement in Canada and describes how private sponsorship has a political impact on the citizens who support refugees. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Join our conversation about refugee resettlement by tweeting your thoughts to @grantmgordon and @rgurumurthy. Make sure you include the hashtag #DisplacedPodcast! One last thing: we are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week in our series on refugee resettlement, we take a closer look at the process of resettlement in the U.S. with Dauda Balubwila, a caseworker for the International Rescue Committee in Boise, Idaho. Dauda works with resettled refugees from the moment they arrive in Boise; he meets them at the airport, takes them to their first apartments, and then guides them through their first few months in the U.S. He provides valuable insight about the process of resettlement and its most pressing challenges. Plus, he shares his own story of resettlement in Boise after fleeing his home in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Join our conversation about refugee resettlement by tweeting your thoughts to @grantmgordon and @rgurumurthy. Make sure you include the hashtag #DisplacedPodcast! One last thing: we are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In January 2019, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar became the first ever Somali-American member of Congress. Rep. Omar was resettled in the U.S. as a teenager, and since then has watched the topic of resettlement become increasingly polarized in U.S. politics. This week, Grant and Ravi interview Rep. Omar about her personal experience resettling in the U.S., and what needs to change in the U.S. system. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Join our conversation about refugee resettlement by tweeting your thoughts to @grantmgordon and @rgurumurthy. Make sure you include the hashtag #DisplacedPodcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imagine a world where every refugee who needs to be resettled receives that opportunity. What would it take? Today there are 1.4 million refugees who have no chance of returning to their homes or integrating into their countries of first asylum. For them, resettlement is the only option. But that option is under threat around the world - in 2019, U.S. refugee admissions alone are at a historic low due to a cap set by the Trump administration. In the first episode of a new series on global resettlement, Grant and Ravi talk to Dr. Jeremy Weinstein, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor of Political Science at Stanford. He gives us an overview of the U.S. resettlement model and shares his research on how data and machine learning can reform the system. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Join our conversation about refugee resettlement by tweeting your thoughts to @grantmgordon and @rgurumurthy. Make sure you include the hashtag #DisplacedPodcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In October 2015, US airstrikes destroyed a trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, operated by Médecins Sans Frontières. 42 people were killed. Following the attack, MSF International President Dr. Joanne Liu testified before the UN Security Council and captured the attention of an international audience. In the final episode of our series examining the future of war, Grant and Ravi welcome Dr. Joanne Liu to Displaced to discuss the attack, how the conduct of war is changing, and why civilians and humanitarians are increasingly the targets of conflict. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Catch up on our Future of War series: hear about the top conflicts to watch in 2019, how technology is changing war, and the challenge of documenting human rights violations in Yemen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Radhya Almutawakel started human rights work in 2004; as she criticized the unfolding war in Yemen in a local newspaper, families of those who had been detained reached out to her for help. Now, Radhya is the co-founder and chairperson of the Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, which documents human rights violations by all parties of the conflict in Yemen. This week, Ravi and Grant talk to Radhya about the challenge of documenting famine as a tool of war, the future of the conflict in Yemen, and how to train a new generation of human rights advocates. Displaced is a production by the International Rescue Committee and Vox Media. You can read more about this episode in our show notes. Tell us what you think! Make sure you use #DisplacedPodcast on Twitter to discuss the season. You can also get in touch with Grant @grantmgordon and Ravi @rgurumurthy.  Catch up on our series about the future of war: hear from Robert Malley, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, about the top conflicts to watch in 2019, and Loren DeJonge Schulman and Erin Simpson, two defense industry experts, about how technology is changing war.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Ravi and Grant turn to Loren DeJonge Schulman and Erin Simpson to discuss how technology is changing war and what that means for humanitarians. Both Loren and Erin have years of experience working in the defense industry - so not only are they experts on this issue, they also provide a unique view on how militaries around the world are actually thinking about and implementing technologies like autonomous weapons, AI, and cyberwarfare. Loren and Erin are two of the three co-hosts of their own podcast called Bombshell, where they unpack more national security and defense issues. Check it out. If you haven’t listened to Ravi and Grant’s conversation with Robert Malley, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, about the top conflicts to watch in 2019, catch up here. Displaced is a partnership between Vox Media and the International Rescue Committee. Find our show notes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yemen. Afghanistan. U.S.-Chinese tensions. The International Crisis Group (ICG) ranks these conflicts as the top three to watch in 2019. To kickoff season two of Displaced, Robert Malley, president and CEO of the ICG, explains why these conflicts top the list, and what they say about the changing geopolitical order and the future of war. Displaced is produced by the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with the International Rescue Committee. Find our show notes here. Get in touch with us at displaced@rescue.org.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At Displaced we examine the causes and consequences of the global refugee crisis. And this season, we're going even deeper. Each of our episodes will focus on one of the three top issues humanitarians face today: the future of war, refugee resettlement, and climate change and displacement. Season two launches January 22nd. Don't miss an episode - subscribe to Displaced now. If you're new to Displaced, start listening with our conversations with Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen and Homeland actor Mandy Patinkin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pulitzer prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen is the guest on this episode of Displaced, and talks to Grant and Ravi about his background, and the traumatic experience of being separated from his parents when he was 4 years old. He goes on to talk about the role of trauma in shaping the lives of refugees, and how that has informed his own work. They discuss the label 'refugee', and the place of refugees in America in this current moment. This is the last episode of Displaced in season 1. Check out our previous episodes here in the show notes: www.rescue.org/displaced. Get in touch with the show via email: displaced@rescue.org Support the show by leaving us a review, and subscribe to Displaced for new content in your feed when Season 2 is released in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ann Mei Chang talks to Ravi and Grant about her new book, ‘Lean Impact: How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good.’ Her career spans both the private and public sector: she led USAID’s first-ever innovation hub, the Global Development Lab, and she spent almost a decade as senior engineering director at Google, before she left Silicon Valley for the State Department, where she was a senior advisor for women and technology. Ann Mei Chang shares her lessons learned through this journey, and discusses how to use a Silicon Valley style of iterative innovation in the global development sector.  Displaced is produced by the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with the International Rescue Committee. Find our show notes here: www.rescue.org/displaced. Rate and review the show, or email us at displaced@rescue.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ravi talks to David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee - and a long-time friend and colleague - during a special event recorded with a live audience at the New School’s Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility in New York City.  Their wide-ranging conversation focuses on the politics of the refugee crisis: what a political solution looks like in Yemen; how to negotiate with states to keep borders open and widen rights to work; and whether the refugee crisis caused the rise of right-wing populism in Europe and the United States. Displaced is produced by the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with the International Rescue Committee. Find our show notes here: www.rescue.org/displaced. Rate and review the show, or email us at displaced@rescue.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In order to solve any given problem, an understanding of its root cause is the first step. But when those roots are tangled up with other factors - a whole set of interrelated causes and contexts, they all have to be taken into account to design an effective solution. And if ‘everything is everything’, where should we begin in trying to solve complex problems in areas like health and education? Patrick Fine is CEO of FHI 360, and explains what ‘integrated development’ looks like in his work. He discusses with Grant and Ravi how to approach this level of complexity, and design programs that are cost effective. Displaced is produced by the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with the International Rescue Committee. Find our show notes here: www.rescue.org/displaced. Rate and review the show, and email us on displaced@rescue.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration operates with a 3 million dollar budget, and combines aid with diplomacy. Anne Richard served as the former Assistant Secretary of State for PRM from 2012 to 2017, and in this episode she talks about her experiences during those years, including how she worked with countries to accept more refugees, and implemented changes to refugee policy here in the U.S. under President Obama. She also discusses how those changes are being reversed or rolled back under the Trump administration, and puts anti-refugee sentiment into historical context.  Displaced is produced by the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with the International Rescue Committee. Find our show notes here: www.rescue.org/displaced Rate and review the show, and email us: displaced@rescue.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices