Media Storm - Why closed borders don't work: Refugees on community solutions

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

This week is Refugee Week, a time to celebrate the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. And here at Media Storm, we can't do it without delving into media hypocrisy when reporting on the group. Why do closed borders not work - and why, in the face of hard evidence, do politicians still continue to ignore the facts and figures on displacement?  We’re joined in the studio by Ugandan model and transgender refugee rights activist, ⁠Amanda Kamanda⁠, and Iranian Refugee Olympic athlete, ⁠Dorsa Yavarivafa⁠. They tell us about the importance of LGBTQ+ refugee protection and the power of sport to create community. In contrast, we cover the rise of homophobia and transphobia in the West, and specifically in media coverage of migration. After the break, we turn our focus onto the US where anti-ICE protests embody the theme of this week’s Refugee Week: ‘Community as a Superpower’. And as we approach the one-year anniversary of UK riots after the Southport stabbing, our guests also respond to Keir Starmer’s ‘Island of Strangers’ speech.  The episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠)  The music is by⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠ Support us on⁠⁠⁠ Patreon⁠⁠⁠! Follow us on⁠⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, and⁠⁠⁠ TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everybody and happy Refugee Week every year on Media Storm. We have taken up the chance to bring our OG episode one community back into the studio and see how the media is faring in its migration coverage. Spoiler alert, no points for improvement. But we have got some new perspectives for you from our guests this year. They'll be able to tell us about some sides of displacement we haven't yet explored, like being from the LGBT-Q-plus community or being an athlete without a nation to represent.

Also, this week's Refugee Week theme is community as a superpower. And given protesters in the US are currently, literally, physically putting themselves between immigration officers and undocumented migrants who are a backbone of their society, will be exploring the news from across the pond from the perspective of refugees and people with insecure migration states. But first, it's that time of year where UNHCR, the UN's Refugee Agency, releases its annual report about the state of the global displacement crisis. Wait a second. Do we use the word crisis? Because we have in previous years said that the term refugee crisis sensationalises, overwhelms people and deflects blame from the governments who are in many ways manufacturing the crisis.

That is often the case, yes. When we read about the, quote, refugee crisis in our media, we're being told that the crisis is on our borders. Refugees are the source of it, and we are its victims. But refugees coming to our shores in relatively small numbers at a global scale, this doesn't need to be a crisis if only we had a system equipped to deal with it. Right. And as we often hear from people on this show,

our governments implement hostile and deliberately inefficient systems and they criminalize and demonize vulnerable people and that creates scenes of chaos and crisis. And this is why I use the term displacement crisis instead of refugee crisis. Displacement is something that happens to refugees, not because of them. And it's a terrible thing.

The global displacement crisis is not a crisis of people crossing borders or of foreigners coming to our land. It's a sad and constant reality on our planet that due to war, natural disaster, the climate crisis, famine, poverty, people are forced to flee their homes and they are left in a state of insecurity and homelessness that is called displacement.

It could happen to anybody. And the governments of the world have two choices. One, develop an infrastructure to deal with it or bury your heads in the sand. Judging by many government's hostile rhetoric about refugees, the aggressive policing and the complicated and cruel bureaucracies we've heard so much about on Media Storm, I feel like many so-called asylum systems

are designed less to provide asylum to people in need and more to deter them from coming or find grounds to deny and deport them. Yeah, so much that's the case. And this is where we can take a look at the data. which was released last week by UNHCR because it lays out in clear numbers the global displacement crisis and the global response. And it's pretty clear where the real crisis lies. So first quick disclaimers, these figures are the best estimates compiled by governments,

NGOs and UN bodies around the world. Accurate numbers are obviously very difficult in this sphere. I also don't have the granular data. I'm working with round numbers. And this report takes us up to the end of 2024. Okay, disclaimers done. What do we know? Today in the world, there are just over 120 million people in a state of displacement. That's about the population of Japan. Many of these, though, have been displaced for years, even their whole lives. If we had to take a look at what happens in the space of a year,

in 2024, 25 and a half million people were forcibly displaced. In the same period, nearly 10 million displaced people returned home. That means just under 16 million people became in need of international community protection last year. It's a big number, but to put it into perspective for a world of 8 billion people, it's about half the population of Tokyo or Shanghai. Now, almost 80% of people who were displaced stayed in their own countries, often trapped in active war zones, famines, and in temporary shelters. Some 3 million people made asylum claims abroad.

So that's about 1 in 10. And of the people who were given protection, three quarters were given it by low and middle income countries, a quarter by the poorest countries in the world. Okay, but wait a second, because that leaves a relatively small fraction coming to wealthy Western countries and asking for their help. And that's why the term refugee crisis or European refugee crisis is just so ignorant.

But let's talk about how these people are coming. Almost all asylum seekers traveled via dangerous and what Westerners would now call illegal routes. How come there's no alternative? Now the first number that I looked for when I opened this report was the number of people given resettlement. This means the number of people who were given refugee status and brought over legally and safely to their union. new country. All the safe countries in the whole world collectively resettled just 188,000 people. In other words, 0.7% of people who were forced to flee their homes last year were given safe legal routes. And that's 0.1% of all displaced people in the world given that option. Wow. Wow.

It's just not odds you can like bank on, you know. No. So as you said before, displacement is a constant reality of this planet. We can either come up with a system to deal with it or we can ignore it. And this doesn't look like a system designed to deal with it. No. And when you don't have that system, what do you get instead? Chaos at the borders, dangerous routes, people dying and so-called illegal migrants. And of course it's true.

Not everyone who is displaced can be resettled in new countries. But some people have to be because they will die if they stay, but also because others can't stay if they don't go. Because as the data shows, with the vast majority staying displaced in their own countries or borderline and impoverished countries, they have no papers, they cannot work, they cannot feed themselves, the only way that they can survive is if a family member or loved one crosses borders, finds work and sends money back to them. This, in lieu of like governments taking action, is truly what underpins our global asylum system and keeps so many people alive. That's also largely why many of the asylum seekers we see coming are young men of working age. Yeah, that's true. Countries that seek to close their borders from all forms of uncontrolled migration are living in denial of a plain fact and reality of this planet and of our species. closed border policies have failed for decades and decades because they are in denial.

And to be honest, I'm sick of commenting on it because by now it should be so obvious. And yet policy makers keep digging themselves into these pits of despair by chasing this white rabbit of shutting down migration and closing the border. Well, migration isn't even the effing problem. I agree. I'm so done with these policymakers. but they're not the only ones with power. We have power. Communities have power. So it's time to talk about the theme of this year's World Refugee Week.

Community as a superpower. People are essentially pretending to be gay in order to be glass of asylum in this country. Economic migrants jumping on a boat, chucking their passport in the sea. And no one seems to be doing anything about it. We risk becoming an island of strangers. I'm increasingly being followed, like I'm going around the soups of Morocco. But we will not be able to sustain. asylum system. If simply being gay is sufficient to qualify for protection. Welcome to MediaStorm,

the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Mallinson and I'm Helena Wadia. This week's Media Storm, Refugee Week, Communities Against Closed Borders. Welcome to the Media Storm studio. Our first guest is an activist model refugee advocate and co-founder of the Minority Inclusion Foundation. Originally from Uganda, Amanda was forced to flee due to severe persecution for being both transgender and a human rights defender.

We'll find out more about her story shortly. For now, welcome to the studio, Amanda Commander. Thank you so much for having me and I'm excited. Our second guest is a badminton player who represented the refugee Olympic team at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Born in Iran, she was forced to flee at 15 years old with her.

mother. Now based in the UK, she studies sports science and continues to train as an exceptional badminton player. Welcome to Media Storm, Dorsa Yava Rivafa. Hi, thanks for having me. Very excited as well. Amanda, let's start with you. Can you share with us what you like about your story and what it tells us about the threats facing LGBTQ plus people and the difficulties being an LGBTQ plus refugee? First of all, I'll begin with wishing everyone a happy Pride Month. And I would like to reiterate that LGBT immigrants are very high at risk in terms of discrimination, violence, and also they need a lot of support from communities in trying to help them integrate into society. Think about LGBT people that are still young, they're teenagers, they are being bullied in school, you know.

Or think about somebody that has to hide at their workplace because they cannot be who they are. You can't even accessing services because if they disclose to like a health worker, the health worker will change their attitude towards them or even access to employment. If your landlord discovers your LGBT, they can throw you out or deny you access to a house. I want to bring it out from my own personal experience as a transgender activist that came from Uganda because I was the first ever mistrans global Uganda. And that meant I was the first transgender participant from my country to go in a beauty pageant. things like this were never considered like morally upright in my country because

Uganda has been very homophobic in terms of we don't have things like pride parades. We don't have things like LGBT people visible in the media. And if they are, there's tons of like hate comments, hate crimes. And sometimes certain things you say, not only harm you, but they also risk harming your family because our families are sometimes our leverage point. They'll try to say, or if you say something, your family is going to pay the repercussions. LGBT people are considered taboo, and if you're being visible in the media, you're painting a bad image, you're destroying our kids. You're influencing them generally.

They say brainwashing the kids. And yet, for us, what we are doing is we are trying to have honest dialogues about sexuality. Sexuality is something that we should openly speak about. Because the more we hide things about sexuality, the more they come out in very repressed ways. that could be aggressive. So there's a lot to unpack from this discussion, and I feel that the purposes of us having this is to change narratives in making the world a better place.

Thank you. I have a question. Was there a turning point for you when you realised that you would have to leave Uganda? Yes. So the turning point came about. I remember the year was 2021. I had just finished my undergraduate degree,

and part of me was holding on to the fact that I'm the last child from a family of like eight, and I wanted to stay and continue looking after my mom when she was old. And a part of me had this thing of, I can't stay in Uganda because of my sexuality, but at the same time, who's going to look after my parents when they are old? It's like a sort of reciprocity. They looked after me.

Now that I'm now what, I should also do the same thing. But what about my dreams? What about my safety? Because the longer I stayed there for me, it meant that I was risking my life. So I was conflicted between looking at my mom. By that time she was battling high blood pressure and all these illnesses that come when a person is getting older

at the same time. I felt that my activism and my own journey was pushing me to live home and I got a scholarship to come to the UK to study and my dreams changed after that. Dorsa, I'd love to bring you into the conversation here. Can you share with us your story? And tell us a bit about the special role that sport has played. Yes, of course.

I was about nine years old when I started playing badminton. I started playing at tournaments, and I started winning tournaments, a law firm, and Iran's national coach. She told me to come train with her. I started training a lot more and started going professional. But then it started when I was 14. My mom had some problems with the government. And we had to run away and go from Iran, which it was very, very hard for me as a 14-year-old girl.

It was very hard to leave my friends, my family, my dad. It was a lot of countries we had to go through. First of all, we went from Iran to Turkey, stayed in Turkey for a good month. We tried several times to just leave Turkey and go to Germany. And after several times, we'd be succeeded. We stayed in Germany for a good 10 months. after the 10 months we got two negative answers that we can't stay anymore and if we were staying in Germany we would have get deported to Iran and we didn't

want that so after that from Germany to France and then France to Belgium I went to jail I got handcuffed by the police although I was 15 in that time and they just did not care but I was several times of going jail getting handcuffed pointing a gun to my head. We finally arrived to the UK in 2019. Even just from that description, it's just such a turbulent life and upbringing. But I wonder how sport and playing badminton has remained a constant for you and also helps you maybe find a community. Yes, yes, of course. Sport was always what I was thinking about on the way. All I was looking up to was my goal and my dream. to go to the Olympics and in that moment I thought it's never going to be possible but I just

believed in myself I never gave up and you did go to the Olympics yes yes I did it how was that it was amazing beautiful community so exciting full of emotions stressful joy the best experience of my life community is a theme of today's episode Amanda how did you find your community in the UK. And what role did the pride community have to play? When I moved here, I kind of felt like there was this veil that was lifted because there was this sort of freedom of people having to dress the way that they can dress, talk the way that, you know, that sort of freedom of expression that has to do even around sexuality and gender expression that I couldn't do back in my country. And I found that when I moved

here, I could further transition as a trans person. Because access to hormone replacement therapy and all these things that are gender affirming in my country does not exist. So for me, moving here, I was finding support from organizations as well that were working with LGBTIQ people. The nightlife, of course, going to like, you know, we don't even have like gay bars or going to like a place that is like Soho. You see rainbows. You see all these things that create like LGBT people welcome here.

Rainbow crosswalks where you can walk and say yes. You get to see things that say diversity is welcome here. anybody can feel safe because London in itself has this multicultural perspective of many people regardless of who you are you're welcome you know big city big dreams and yeah big people it's nice to to hit that you know it's nice to know that those those things like rainbow crosswalks that are i don't know pulled apart on shows like jb news or talk tv actually do mean a lot to people But, you know, I do want to ask, you spoke about being able to be yourself here in the UK, having more freedom. But it's also fair to say that the UK's attitude towards transgender people, especially towards transgender women, has declined in the last few years.

And I wonder when you see these kind of discriminatory laws and policies being implemented here in the UK, how does that make you feel? So when I hear about the discriminatory laws and policies, especially against trans people, it kind of brings back again like this narrative, okay, you're running here, but still it's not safe. Any minute there could be a regression that could send you back from like a situation you've been coming from. The focus is always on the trans women and the bathrooms. Oh, you can't use our bathrooms now because the country made redefinitions of what it means to be a woman and it created a lot of outrage. And in this era that you are in, there's a lot of.

of rage bait, a lot of things that are supposed to spark the spirit of nationalism in triggering people's emotions and gender is a very critical issue in sport, in beauty pageants, in public facilities, in every sphere of life. And right now, as a migrant, we ask ourselves, are we even safe when we come here in these spaces? Because any minute now, a new law could again further criminalize us even when we come to seek refugee in the UK. Now, something we're seeing at the moment in the media, and increasingly so, particularly in the right-wing media, is sowing doubt in the veracity of queer-based refugee claims. Last month, this article was published in the Daily Mail. The headline was, how successful asylum claims for gay refugees have quadrupled since pre-COVID.

The first line reads, The number of asylum seekers successfully claiming to be gay to bag, a one-way ticket to Britain has quadrupled since pre-COVID. Amanda, a couple of things in this headline could potentially be concerning. One of them might be the quadrupling of claims is the daily male states. That's where they put the emphasis. I suppose does that worry you? Do you worry about people gaming the system?

Another thing that could be concerning is the language about people claiming to be gay. Is it damaging to imply that refugees are claiming to be gay to game the system? What are your thoughts? It's damaging to say that refugees are claiming to be gay in a way that being criminalized for your sexuality is a genuine case for asylum, especially in your fleeing a community where you risk your life. And a lot of countries, even as we speak, still criminalize some sex relations in any sort of way. And at the same time, they also don't recognize gender diverse persons that includes transgender, non-binary, and other categories of people. And a lot of people are seeking refuge on genuine reasons.

But it's also important to acknowledge that even when countries continue to criminalize people on grounds of their sexuality, some people use it as a loophole in claiming asylum, and that's a small minority fraction. But the media will always focus, especially the negative stereotypes, that these groups of people are using this loophole to, you know, to put in a claim. Going into the process of seeking asylum, it's a very lengthy process. They interrogate you. You have to prove to the Home Office that I'm being persecuted in my country for who I am. And this is the evidence X, Y and Z. Because they're not going to accept without evidence that you're being persecuted for who you are. And in that process, there's an effect on your psychological well-being, even if you are to lie about it.

Asylum-seeking has an impact on your mental health, by the way. And the media has always put it that we are coming here to use that loophole as an opportunity. But authentically speaking, many people, even that celebrate pride and migrants, are really genuinely fleeing persecution on grounds of their sexuality. And they deserve that protection. Yeah. Articles like this are just so misleading. And I mean, yeah, the claiming to be gay part is obviously misleading, as you've explained. But I also wanted to talk about the one-way ticket part because, yeah, the line was to bag a one-way ticket to Britain. That just says so much about the quality of refugee reporting. It's so leading and it's so inaccurate. It falsely implies people are being given transit, you know, like a one-way ticket, I don't know, on a bus or something, which is not true, you know, they still have to face dangerous journeys. It also falsely implies there's long-term security in refugee status when

our government has actually recently banned citizenship for many refugees. And it also falsely claims that refugees never want to return home. In a nutshell, falsely implies that the person writing this article understands anything about being a refugee. I don't really agree sometimes with what they say in media. Let's move on to the theme of Refugee Week this year, which is community as a superpower. To quote from the Refugee Week team, it's amazing what we can do when we move together towards a shared goal. So let's redefine and rediscover our collective power to shape our. hopeful futures and begin by practicing, celebrating and rehearsing it every day.

And we have seen community power shine through in the face of terrible treatment of refugees and migrants. In the US, people are being taken from their jobs, their homes, their schools, without warning and without their rights. This is because President Trump, after peddling misinformation about migrant crime and foreign invasions, is under pressure to deliver chaotic plans of mass deportation. He's dispatched ICE officers, immigration officers, with arrest quotas of 3,000 people per day. But communities have been blocking agents, protecting their neighbours. Trump has sent in thousands of soldiers and Marines. He has so far failed to squash their protest, and the protests have spread to all 50 states. People in L.A. have stood strong

for two weeks. How does it feel seeing these protests, seeing people stand up for migrants, and is this what we mean by community as a superpower? About the US, personally, I'm very scared

because I am training for LA-20208 for Olympics as a refugee and I am very scared that what's going to happen there, how is it going to be there? I'm very scared. But hopefully in that time when we go, Maybe things changed with community helping us and supporting us?

Yeah, I think community is very important because always community in England always helped me. They didn't care where I'm from. They didn't care my skin colour, nothing. And they just told me that I'm not alone. So I'm very happy about that. So communities are superpower and looking at it in the current global set of affairs, there's a lot of like social division. They always spread that anti-immigrant propaganda.

It's kind of like a distraction to get people to fight internally without being held accountable. But we're also in an era where people are very intelligent. Right now there's a lot of, you know, social media and a lot of community and solidarity, like what's happening in the US. That's really, really building community. But we also have to acknowledge that we cannot wait until something has gone wrong until a law is passed that criminalize a certain group to call everyone,

Please come join us, come fight with us. And by the time we have everyone, it's already being implemented. To build a community of assimilation, tolerance, respectability, and everyone living together in harmony, solidarity should be something that is already before. Like, it has to be ingrained in us. It has to be something that is pre-existing without having to wait for conflict to unite us.

That's a very, very good point. I wonder your thoughts on this. Trump framed the protests as an insurrection and an invasion he also put focus on images of demonstrators waving foreign flags. Now, the word invasion being used alongside asylum seekers is not unusual. This has been used by UK and US media for years now, the conceit being that people who come to another country are part of an enemy invading force like an army.

However, Trump is now using these protests to broaden that category. This rhetoric would be a justification for uses of executive power to do pretty much whatever he wants to do. This is an important connection for the media to make. Amanda, do you think the media have responsibly covered the peaceful protests in L.A.? The weather media has been covering the protests and people waving flags from their countries. We have to acknowledge that migration is part of human nature. And people don't live in the same cities or towns that their great grandparents were born.

But we also have to acknowledge our heritages. And if they are trying to promote a spirit of solidarity in the media perspective of this is my flag, I'm Mexican, I'm from this community and I'm saying, I deserve to be here. Because America is not like the original people that used to be in that land. They're most of them are wiped away. They're even erased from the media. America isn't purely American. Yeah, literally like if you're not indigenous and you're an immigrant in America.

So if people continue waving their flags and putting out things that they feel as sentimental to their existence, whether you're Mexican, whether you're this, whether you're this, you belong to this country and you deserve to have your rights protected. Turning now to the UK, we're coming up to the anniversary of last year's summer riots, which took place in July 24. Now, the inciting incident was the tragic killing of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, British-born teenager Axel Ruda-cabana, was held responsible. However, misinformation spread rapidly and a fictional Muslim asylum seeker

was blamed for their deaths. This lie brought together the two tropes driving today's far right. Islamophobic claims that Muslim men pose a threat to women and girls and manufactured outrage over men arriving in the UK on small boats to live off the taxpayer. What followed was the terrorisation of asylum seekers, people, families, children in hotels, the destruction of black and brown people's businesses and attacks on mosques. The street violence that gripped the UK was inflamed by a coalition of hard-right politicians, commentators and influencers, who empowered hate and who radicalised. grievances widespread across the UK.

However, counter-protests sprung up where people came together also to resist and protect their neighbours. You were both in the UK at this time, is that correct? Yes. Can you just tell us how it felt to be a refugee in the UK during that period? So for me, there is always this imagery that rides on stereotypes, that every time something like a crime happens, that person must have been Muslim. Every time somebody does something, they're like, what was their ethnicity, what was their race?

And when it comes to that incident in a way that it happened, I kind of feel like the grievances and all this outrage that happens in the UK is riding on pre-existing stereotypes, that if one person does something, then it affects the entire community and it paints that entire community at large, which is not true. And a lot of, you know, people from migrant backgrounds, they try to also protect themselves because the UK can strip you of your citizenship on other grounds that, oh, you've been a criminal. And the media, again, always has to paint that photo of these people, are the bad people creating all these hate crimes.

Remember the incident of the person in Liverpool that went and knocked through the crowd? Do you remember? And Hart was reported, yeah, he had a condo. He's been a church man. He's been going to church. He wouldn't even hurt a fly. Maybe that day he was stressed. Did you see how the media phrased it?

Yeah, you see, he wouldn't have to fly. Who was a church going, man? There was a front page spread about how he was a family man. Family man. He wouldn't. You see that tone that is used? So there's a sort of stereotyping that happens, and it's always the media trying to create that lens to sell the news more.

And within the comments, what's the reaction? Yes, it's those people. It's them. It's them. It's them. So what we are dealing with is trying to challenge stereotypes and saying that if one person does something and maybe their person of color does that mean all the rest of people of color do the same thing? No. So why is one person's behavior being used as justification to all this hate?

If we are trying to create a society that builds tolerance, we have to counter the misinformation. But also the media to stop this framing of reporting certain people as always the innocent, they are the victims or something. something happened over them that they wouldn't really do such a thing. But for other people, they are already criminals, whether they've done it, whether or not, even allegedly, it's always this sort of thing, you know. And as migrants, we always have to keep this image. I can't be involved in this. I'm trying to keep a good image because I'm trying to paint this thing that I'm not who

people think I am. I'm not a criminal, you know. I actually find this very interesting because I, so I'm a second generation immigrant on my dad's side, third on my mom's side. And, you know, right here, we're sitting in this studio and Matilda and I, we're talking to two very successful refugees, you know, got activists and exceptional badminton players. And I even feel, even having, you know, lived here my whole life, that sometimes I have to go above and beyond to prove myself, to prove that I deserve to to be here. I wonder with you guys being first generation immigrants, you know, coming over here

and being very successful, do you feel that you have to be exceptional in order to earn your place here? Yes. For me personally, it was very hard for me to blend in with the community in the UK at first when I arrived. I always felt left alone. There was people that were really racist to me telling me to go back to my country and even like she don't deserve to be here when I was winning tournaments that were keep telling me why is she even here

go back to your country like you shouldn't be here it was very hard for me personally to blend in with all my friends that I'm with right now like I got friends now make friends in that age I was only 15 when I arrived

so it was really hard I felt like I had to blend in I was acting differently I was acting like like all my other friends to just, you know, seems like I'm one of them. I tried my best and I'm here now. To be exceptional, especially in our context of like if you're having a migrant background, it's also the country itself creating this selective criteria that they're using. Because right now, even as we speak, the UK Home Office has put new rules for their visas.

Do you realize that English language tests, life in the UK, that if you got those tests and told a white British person to sit those tests. Did you know that some of them could fail those tests? Oh, yeah. So they are putting this thing that if you're coming, we want you to come with your utmost game. But when we are coming here with all our skills, because I came here on a scholarship to do a master's degree in international development, and we are making the world a better place, you know, people are going to the Olympics and all that.

How come the media is not covering our successes to say that these people are coming with their skills, they are doing this and all that? but they are now looking for the scandals. People come here with their skills and their knowledge and they are creating changes in their communities, but people are invisible to that. At the core of everything, there's duality. There's the good and the bad.

Where is the good that people are doing that is not being put out in the media in saying that so-and-so is winning a medal for their country? So-and-so is changing the world in creating this organization, employing X number of people, which a lot of people from our communities are doing their opening shops, they are creating employment opportunities, they are representing their

countries, all their patriotism. But the media is not putting that. Right. And they're doing that. I like that you said opening shops, for example, creating community because people are doing that in small ways. Yes, it's incredible to win an Olympic medal and, you know, that should be celebrated. But you don't have to win an Olympic medal to be worthy to live in a country that you were not born in. Exactly. Yeah. And the fact that they create, All these places where you go to and it has like an entire street of cultural foods, cultural restaurants. And if you want today, I feel like eating Lebanese food. You go to a Lebanese restaurant.

I feel like eating Ethiopian food, you know. But all those things are being ignored. They are waiting for somebody who did the crime. Where were they from? Then the media captures that, putting it out there and then creating this sort of division. Tell them to go back to their countries. Tell them that they are not making people feel safe. Why isn't everyone talking about the good stuff that we are doing?

There's also this idea that when it comes to certain minorities like asylum seekers, there's collective responsibility. If one asylum seeker does something, by grace of their minoritized identity, all asylum seekers did that and should be held guilty. You'll see a headline asylum seekers involved in X crime. You will never see a headline that says white person involved in this crime. That's how exceptionalism materializes in our media very commonly. is a migrant crime reporting. And I think that partially explains language that we saw recently from Kirstama, the Prime Minister of the UK, who recently made a speech about immigration

that struck me as particularly controversial because I felt as though the demographic he was speaking to were the demographic involved in or supportive of the disorder on our streets last year. He said that the UK was at risk of becoming an island of strangers because of uncontrolled migration. I wonder, does language like this help to prevent racism and division, or does it have the opposite effect? Politics have a way of saying that these groups of people, if you don't act on them, they are going to take over the country and they're going to, you know, ruin your prospectus of getting something. But this is not the first time they are trying to do this. Because do you even remember the time of Brexit? When you are like, if we do Brexit, then these people will live

and then people will have the jobs and then the country will be restored into order. But did you see the repercussions we got from Brexit? We should acknowledge things like the cost of living crisis, unemployment, and a lot of things that people are facing in general. We must also acknowledge that people come here under care work visas, they pay tax. They are bringing their skills and expertise, doing the odd jobs that no one else would do.

A lot of people that are Whitebridge don't even want those jobs to look after the people that are ailing, old and all that. They're like, oh, me to do that, no? Someone who's from a migrant, there should be done to take care of someone who is on their deathbed. Certain jobs are seen as, you, I cannot do that, but a migrant is doing it with all their passion, taking care of your old nanny that is sick. But if you're promoting the spirit of nationalism by telling people that we don't want these groups of people, the aftermath of all this is going to affect everybody.

We're supposed to be united at a time like this, not creating further separation. Yeah, she's totally right. I agree with everything she says. And it made me so sad that just calling us strangers. And I was like, these strangers are making your country proud as well. Like someone like Amanda, someone like me, we are helping them. We are helping them and saying, like, yeah, we're in the UK. And we say that proudly, like we're not very ashamed of it, that they call us.

It is very sad because later on, personally me, I'm going to be in British Olympic team, like, you know, in Britain's, you know, in GB. So that made me really sad to call us strangers. These strangers are helping you grow your community. And I think we should end just bringing it back to that theme of community as a superpower, Dorsa. What has helped you build community in your new home? For me, I am thinking whenever I train, whenever I go to the Olympics, I'm always saying that you're representing one in a 1,000 million refugees all around the world. So that just makes me keep going and make me proud of being refugee and helping the community.

And Amanda, what has helped you build community? And also I want to ask you, how can we encourage people to talk to their neighbours, talked to the people around them so that said of an island of strangers or an island of neighbours. So what has helped in build community for me was because now that I was openly living as myself as a trans person, you know,

the LGBT community here helped me in terms of having this sort of sense of belonging. Even right now, the theme of Pride Month, we're preparing to match, right? And we're going to be matching as a group, as a collective. A lot of people from various parts of London and from various works of life, regardless of your career, your race,

as long as you know you're coming to show solidarity and support, there's a lot of social events that tend to happen in this sort of setting. There's UK Black Pride for, you know, people of colour. There's carnival that happens somewhere Notting Hillgate. A lot of these things are happening, you know, and they kind of help people to come together. Everybody is welcome, yeah. And just before we say goodbye, Amanda,

can you tell us about Minority Inclusion Foundation and where people can follow it? So Minority Inclusion Foundation, it's something that was pioneered to create a voice for minorities, you know, to continue advocating for their rights. And currently we are walking across the 32 boroughs of London. It's equivalent to the miles that all the asylum seekers and all these immigrants take to come to this country. Because the route coming to the UK is not an easy route. And for us walking across London, it's networking with communities in interacting with people and telling them we are here. We want to change this narrative.

We are trying to be at grassroots with the communities to bring you on board. If people can search two refugees working on Instagram, they can be able to see the kind of work we've been doing, walking across London. And they might even see us coming across their borough, telling them, refugees are coming, they're trying to network with you, they're trying to share their stories with you, and they are trying to make the world a better place in ensuring that people are protected, they are safe, they feel assimilated and they feel accepted in the country. Yes.

Thank you. And Dorsa, do you have any follow-ups for our listeners? Yes. So right now I am posting a lot on Instagram and as a refugee team as well, we are just keep posting, keep posting and telling people you're not alone and you can do anything. It's just Dorsa underlying Yowery Bafa. And the Olympic team is Olympic refugee team. Thank you for listening. Next week, Helen and I will be bringing you a news watch update. these stories are accumulating so we will be making our way through the most unhinged headlines

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