Sauti, 'voice for the voiceless' in Swahili, uses art and music to express themselves and to challenge racism in Ireland. They held the second Youth Anti-Racism Summit in Cork City Hall in 2024 and organized ‘Riot Against Racism’ to bring together many different performers and artists to tackle racism.

‘Racism we’re gonna swing it out’ - Diamond

Thanks to the fantastic young people of Sauti Youth who talk to me for this podcast and who share their poetry, spoken word and music with us: Emmanuella, Ebenezer, Zoe, Kanyi, Pablo, Diamond, Toby and Caleb. And to Mark Mavambu and Raphael Olympio, youth mentors and founders of Sauti Studios who also share their insights on activism and working for change. 

The poetry featured was created at a special workshop by Raphael Olympio (funded by the Arts Council) and the young people wrote about racism, the genocide in Congo, their hometown of Harare in Zimbabwe, ‘The Sky Is The Limit’, and their love of Nigeria. And we talked about colonialism, neo-colonialism, writing, activism and much more.

‘Although all these countries have these great mineral resources or whatever in their country, it's supposed to be benefiting the country, not causing trouble and chaos in the country. Like this is not only happening to African countries, even in South America too, they have a lot of mineral resources and their country's don’t get advantage of it - it's been happening for years. We all think this stopped by the countries being, having the so called independence, but they might have independence, but the country's not. It's not getting controlled on its own.’

- Ebeneezer

Music recorded at Wander Live Event at Laneway Studios, Cork where Sauti Youth performed 'Change' and 'They Don't Really Care About Us'. 

Follow Sauti Youth @sautistudiocork & Cork Migrant Centre @corkmigrantcentre 

Produced by @bairbreflood // bairbreflood.org

Thanks to the Arts Council of Ireland for their continued support and funding.