Tea at Four - We need to talk about the Sudan Crisis: A Story on loss, displacement & life as a refugee

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

On Today’s episode, Lauren and Billy learn are joined by Basma Khalifa who shares the heartbreaking story of losing her family in the Sudan conflict and how they have turned their grief into action.Right now, 12 million people have been forced to flee their homes in Sudan in order to find safety. Refugees from Sudan urgently need our support. Together with @unrefugeesuk, we’re raising awareness of a crisis that has received only 29% of the funding it desperately needs.You can donate here: https://unh.cr/b7EDZe

No one wants to leave home. Warrantorn or not, if the war stop tomorrow, we would all go back. I don't know how to explain it more than you grieve every day. I would hope that one day for our children's children, there'll be a sedan again. For now, it's just, it's utter sadness. I don't know how to explain it. Yes. Yeah.

No, I'm sorry. Hi, guys, welcome back to Tiet 4. This is a special episode. while we've partnered with UK for UNHCR. It might be a bit different to your normal listen, but it's a really important one. The conversation that we're having today is to raise awareness for the crisis in Sudan,

and more importantly, what it means to be forced to be displaced. To help us understand that, we're joined today by Basma. Welcome, Basma. Thank you for coming on to hear it for. Would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners, please? Yeah, sure. My name is Basma Khalifa. I am a director and a writer, and I am from Sudan.

Incredible. And for those people who don't know what is happening in Sudan, would you mind describing it not in the sense of headlines or news or what we might see on social media? How has it personally affected you and your family? So the war in Sudan kicked off. I would say in about 2023, it was a bit of an explosion for all of us. I think we always knew murmuring that something was going to happen and something was coming. But I think you don't really understand what the scale of that is going to be. For me and my family, most all my family are in Sudan. My father's side are from a small part of Sudan. Well, not even that small, but a part of Sudan called Umburman in North Sudan. And then my mother's side are from Khartoum, which is the capital of Sudan. And for all of us, it was quick prior decisions on trying to get out. Who do you get out?

How do you get them out? What ways do you do it? Where do you go? What are the different options? It was like panic stations. I'm not going to lie. It was sort of every day. day you wake up and you're like who is where and we come from really big families um so it's not that

you're just thinking of you know your granny and your grandfather or just your immediate cousins you're also thinking of your cousins you're thinking of my parents and all their aunties and uncles and then all their other halves and then they're all their families and they're all their kids and they're the kids kids so it's a there's a lot of us um and so you're always just naming people and finding out where they are and how to get them out i was wondering like what's been has there been any stories regarding the war that have like been really impactful to you or that stuck with you that you would share with us today yeah i mean my i have a lot of awful stories of things that have happened to my family um i think most notably the one that i've talked about before is that um my cousins and my aunt

live quite near the army barracks where quite a lot of the trouble was and we had talked a lot about moving them and how to get them out um and they were like no let's just stay it's too dangerous but at a point I was like we like something needs to happen and actually I remember I was sitting in Soho in a coffee shop here in London and my aunt rang me and she was like okay they're going to leave today like we're going to get them out um just keep your phone on you and I remember I was like okay yeah fine we need to get them out there was kind of I guess about eight or nine of them at that point maybe a bit less I can't you remember and um I got a phone call while I was sitting in just normal working day on a Wednesday and they were like,

your aunt's been killed. And I remember being like, what do you mean? They were meant to have gone. They're meant to have got out. They meant to have left. And her daughter's got into the car. She went to actually close the door of the house, which is crazy to be like, oh, I need to close the door of the house that we might never return to. And she was shot as she was as she was closing the door. I think at this point, you're there just, you know, it's just killing to kill. Like, You don't even really know who they're killing. But they had to flee straight away. So they had to leave her body and they had to flee.

My other cousin, her, I think the bullet and shrapnel from whatever, the explosion sort of hit her leg. So she could barely walk. But we got them out. And then my uncle went back to get my aunt's body when it was a little bit safer and it had calmed down. But yeah, we've lost at least four or five family members and sort of the shootings and the bomb. and explosions and whatever else there's been so it's been really sad it's been um yeah it's awful in a weird way soon these people are very resilient um so you're almost mourning while you're also like being grateful that yeah not everyone died um which is a really weird way to look at it but at some point

um i think the islamic side of sedan and most of north Sudan um most that you know my family are all Muslim and so they have you know religious bias I like to call it where you always kind of like well thank God you know someone you know we made it thank God we're safe thank God we got out and there's not really enough time to grieve when you need to survive and I think that's what it is in war you this the grief is distracting actually we need to we need to get safe so we mourned it here I think I don't know my cousins now I mean they'll never be the same that was their only parent but it's been yeah it's been

horrible actually really really horrible so you have so your family came here from sedan themselves is like what's what's my story and so I actually was born in Saudi Arabia I was born in Riyadh um my parents were working there at the time and then we moved to northern Ireland hence the accent and when I was about three with my two brothers and we lived in Northern Ireland until we were I was about 11 12 we moved to Scotland for about seven years and I've been in London for about 10 do the math because I'm not going to tell you my age and so we came as refugees we came to the UK as refugees my father was a doctor and then we worked our way

I mean I didn't work my way up I was a child but my dad worked his way up to getting being consultant doctor and eventually we got our British citizenship and our passports and everything else but yeah we came here as refugees privilege we have is that we can't even begin to fathom that story and I always think like you talk about your aunt going back to close the door those kind of like natural human reactions like what do you do in that situation once you grab like yeah and I can't even imagine it as a woman like there's so much more things you have to think about like you've got to think about your personal hygiene levels and your all the stuff that's important as a woman

as well as like if you're the family member yeah it's like do you go like practical do you go sentimental when these like with those conversations with your family that were beginning to even have those thoughts of fleeing like what is is any of that stuff going through their heads or is it purely just survival it's a weird one because I think about this a lot about the sadness of stuff which sounds really silly and like really if the humans alive it should be enough but I do think just before the war began my aunts and grandmothers and stuff had left me quite a few things that you know one day you'll wear this on your wedding day or one day you pass this down to your children or one day this will be yours

And there was actually a specific necklace that my aunt, who I was really close to, had sort of said she would leave for me when she was dying. And I was so excited about having that necklace. And I still think about it all the time. I'm really sad about that necklace. Yeah. And those were our family homes. We went to sit down every single year, growing up every year.

So that, you know, I try to say to people, like, think about not, you know, when we plan like Christmas or you plan your Easter holidays and you're like, oh, I'm going to go to my moms. I'm going to go to my dad's. I'm going to go to my grandmother. It's like, that's gone. so all the memories that lived in that house or lived in those houses or lived in that neighborhood are just in our heads because we will never be able to go back to them

and so there's a really weird morning of the future that could have been yeah and of the things of the family photos of the you know Sudan like most kind of like ethnic countries there's just like a lot of memories held in like the gold and the materials and the things that your family sort of keep for you and pass down through generations. And so it's generational homes, but it's also generational stuff. And I know it's just stuff, and I try to tell myself all the time. It's just stuff. But I think it's like someone saying, oh, my grandmother gave me this for me.

Yeah. I think that's a very human response to have because everyone, I think, automatically thinks, oh, I want to grab my photographs. I want to grab this that my dad gave me, my mom gave me. And the last thing you actually think about is a passport. or a personal document, which is, I guess, in these situations, the most important thing to grab. Yeah, and that did happen.

My cousin, whose mother was killed, she forgot her passport and running out of the house. And then they get to the border trying to get into Egypt and she doesn't have a passport. And for a lot of the boys also, they weren't getting in the girls, women and children being prioritised. So then families are being broken up and you've got these 16-year-old boys

who can't get through the border and have to stay at the border for a while. and then you'd close the borders because it was just an influx. So that's a big country. There's a lot of people, influx of people trying to get in and they couldn't manage the amount of people that were getting in. And so there is all those legal things

that you have to think about and how to do it, but you literally work day to day. And out with my own family, I was also working with various, like, other charities and people just trying to help get buses. And, you know, the buses were getting really expensive. And it's sort of, a lot of people have nothing and can't afford anything.

So us, as people here, like the diaspora, we went into overdrive of fundraising. Just to be practically, be like, hey, I'm going to transfer you a thousand pounds. Get your family on this bus. You need to get out. So a lot of it was the practical sense. You're right. The passports. So basic, the clothes on your back and your passports.

No one traveled with bags and bags of things. There's not room on buses for bags and bags of things. So take a backpack and you take your most important items and you go. But that moment you close that door. you leave your whole life behind yeah it's really and you arrive at the border in egypt and you're like how what yeah well there's a step from the UNHCR that 12 million people in internally and externally from Sudan are now displaced like and then begs the next question like you said you're trying to support from over here like do you know what the support was like there or if anything

was being provided i mean i think everyone it's really hard because you do have organizing organizations like the UNHCR who work on the ground and it's really helpful for those organizations to be on the ground. There's obviously a lot of people who are able to leave, but just because they leave doesn't mean they don't need support. Once you enter a country like Egypt or a man or you go to the south, wherever you go, Chad, wherever you go, these countries also can't just start throwing money and give you accommodation. It's not like you're coming to the UK where it's like you might potentially get accommodation. It doesn't work the same way. So the support from organizations, like the NHCR, like it is vital.

It's a lifeline. And so I do think that I don't think people really understand that even if you get out, it doesn't mean you got out. Like you need, it's about also rebuilding your life. And that's the hardest part is the rebuild of everything you would have had. And not even that. It's, you know, a lot of my cousins were in education. They were middle of their universities.

So it's kind of like, oh, we're going to. go to another university how much does that cost how do we graduate how do we get an education yeah it's like being an adult who's kind of like born again if you know what i mean like you're starting from scratch again you're starting your life again and but you don't have the comfortability of sort of being a child and someone looking after you there's there's no one looking after you so you've got you've got to figure it out you've got an adult quick and I think for a lot of my cousins unfortunately they had to grow up quick and less like adrenaline to go but you just don't do you and like it's so hard to put yourselves in that situation like this my heart breaks for them that they've had to go

through that because no one wants to leave yeah no one wants to go if it's not my family it's all the families in Sudan and there's we did I want to go back like we all want to go back war and torn or not if the war stopped tomorrow we would all go back yeah like that's our home and that's where we want to be and that's where all our memories are and that's where our lives are so this isn't a case of like okay I want to rebuild our lives somewhere else we would it'd be happy to rebuild there if we could. Yeah. And I think that's what people don't understand.

No one wants to be displaced. Everyone wants to be where they are. They don't have a choice. Yeah. And so that's a huge thing that I try to tell people and teach people that this isn't, this is no one's best option. No one wants this option. No one wants to be in a different city or a different country.

No. You put it so, like visually for me, especially saying about your cousins, like I think people imagine when people flee from, conflict like I don't know the visual of like someone that's in distress but it's like no these are these are people that are living their normal lives just like us and then suddenly you're starting you're given an emergency kit and it's like with a sheet which is essentially like a tent like cooking utensils things like that I just I just kind of even fathomed it's like you still want to carry on living your life with dignity but all you've literally got on you

is what you've been given yeah that's why I I guess aid is so important in like giving you the tools to not just survive for now, but like thrive in when you're able to and you're in safety and things like that. Yeah, you're no, you're spot on. It's exactly that. Like you have to think if you could even humanly put yourself in the position. Think like you wake up tomorrow on everything that you have and everything in your life that you've built as an adult is just gone. It's gone and blink of an eye. And the idea is how would you even start again? Like what does that even look like and that's why having on the ground or having these organizations are a vital life life for

people because it isn't we're not we're literally starting from nothing yeah and uncontrollably and unsensibly and unfairly starting from nothing and so if the aid can be provided just to get people on their feet we're not asking they're not it's organized you start giving out houses they're not giving out blank balances full of money we're we're giving basic aid to just like get from day to day and now you're looking at people that are just that we're flourishing in their countries and living well to survival. Yeah.

And it's pure survival and the idea of you know we're so disconnected as a community now it's 12 million people's an insane amount of people that we're all just trying to grab onto each other and hold on to each other and connect in different ways and support each other but the nucleus of home is gone and I think I guess for people listening to this or watching this is that if you think about losing home

and how much that's the place everyone comes back to and that's the place you find yourself and that's your safety and that's your circle if that has gone where do you begin to sort of understand yourself and understanding your identity and understand who you can be if you don't have a safe ground to start from

yeah yeah I read a step online that more than half of the people displaced in Sudan are women which instantly I feel that connection there obviously but I read more to that and it's so much more vulnerable than that it makes them more susceptible to gender-based violence they don't have access to like health care like the hospitals and stuff aren't functioning things like menstrual items you don't have access to i don't know i guess when i

approach this conversation you don't really understand the impact of the small things we take for granted like a period pad and when it comes to things like aid there's this separation of us because we're here and Sudan because it's so far away. But the act of like if I was in a girl's bathroom and someone needed a tampon or a pad and I had one in my... I'd instantly go looking for it. So I guess is there frustration in you?

There's not that instant want from people that aren't directly linked to... or aren't directly informed about what's going on in Sudan that aren't wanting to help? The thing is, I think you can not know and still have humanity. Yeah.

I think you don't need to know about the war and the numbers and who's in charge and why it happened and what you don't that shouldn't be the reason to no have human behavior which is someone's suffering and I want to help them yeah like that it's for me it's two very different things so if we can put aside the not understanding even though great if you understand or want to understand please do yeah but if you don't if you just take it to a really human level you're right as a woman I would never want another woman to not be able to get a period pads not be able to wash yourself properly to not be able to have the things you're needed for

the might have women that are giving birth that don't have what they mean need when after birth or their babies who don't have what they need after birth so it's it's it's very basic human decency and so I do think actually for every person who is on their period and can pick out a tampon or pick a pad and to think while there's so many women in the world that can't just pull this out of their bag and that doesn't require you understanding war that just requires you understanding humanity a hundred percent I guess my question is like what do you think the UK should know about Sudan because I for sure there's a lot of misinformation out there and perhaps like that lack of sympathy

or that lack of like wanting to help connecting is due to that you know the funny thing is when I go anywhere in the world and they're and they're like oh where are you from and I always like oh I'm from Sudan and the thing is if you're an Arabic country they always say oh nice Taibine and nice taibine is always like oh they're such nice people and the thing about soon these people is we're so gracious and so giving and so kind and actually so bubbly and that's why I think this war has been so interesting because it's like even I'm in all of us and as I say is very top line because it's not my I'm not in it I haven't I've suffered loss but I haven't directly it hasn't directly happened to me in the same way I've not been on the ground so I think from a

humanity point of view is just looking at these is just people who didn't have a choice and were unfortunately in a country which was not functioning the way it should but they're so kind and so loving and so warm and just want to be good people and I just I don't know how to explain how beautiful culture is and also Sudan like a lot people think Sudan is just like oh yeah people kind of know it's quite big country but like the original pyramids were in Sudan the Nile meets in Sudan like Sudan is mineral rich gold rich like it's a beautiful full place. It has a lot of resources. We sit on the Nile and it is such an important part of the nucleus of North, northeast Africa that I just think it deserves to be preserved and it deserves

to be looked after and the people deserve it and it's not their fault. And I think when I want people to always take away, it's no one's fault when they're displaced. It's without their control. they're not in control of this they don't want that to happen and kindness deserves kindness yeah and so i always think if you're a kind person be kind to others yeah and they're just nice people they just deserve to have a safe life it's not even a flourishing life i'm not even saying like an expensive i'm just saying a safe life people deserve safety yeah and if 12 million people aren't counting aren't safe. We failed as humanity that we are all walking around not caring that other human beings and the other part of the world aren't safe. It's our responsibility as the people who are

safe to be able to give that to others because we're like it sounds cliche to say but we're one human race. So you should care because if it happened to you, you would want people to care. Yeah. And you just happen to be lucky enough that it hasn't happened to you. Yeah. And I guess it's it's one thing to be saved and be supported whilst you're in that conflict what has life been like for you and your family since you've come to the UK or you've you've reached a point of safety it's not I guess it's not just like a deep sigh of relief it's like it's like a continual piece of work or thing that you need to it's just it's it's a continuous it's continuous grief I would say I think we all live in such grief I think there's

such a level of sadness like this has been going on for so many years because regardless before twenty twenty three there was you know it was unsafe anyway yeah and so i don't know how to explain it more than you grieve every day and every day you have just that tinge of sadness that follows you around some days are worse than others some days we cry sometimes we talk about it and i think because soon these people are so resilient they tend not to try their best not to dwell on it and so you kind of put it you're bottling up your grief in a way and trying to be like okay but what can I do to help so grief turns into what is the actionable plan what more can I do and I treat it that way I'm very much kind of like oh what else can I do what else can I help but I'm really sad like I'm

really really sad that I can't go home yeah and I'm really sad for my parents I'm really sad for my grandparents I'm sad for everyone kind of getting emotionally but I don't know I'm sorry but it's really sad. It's sad to think that it'll never be again. And we live in that grief and it's lived experience now and it is what it is. And we just have to make the most of it. And we also have to hope that one day our children's children's children's children will get to go back to a Sudan. And that hope is what kind of keeps us alive. And it's like maybe one day, maybe one day. I don't know it's going to be one day soon. But I would hope that one day for our children's children, and there'll be a Sudan again.

For now, it's just, it's utter sadness. I don't know how to explain it. Yeah. Yeah. I want to hold you back. I'm sorry. You can take five minutes if you want. It's okay.

You're sure. It's quite hard to like. Of course. Of course. Yeah. It's not a tissue. Yeah. So obviously there's been a lot of attention and social media coverage on not just this

conflict, but across Gaza, Congo and even more so now mainstream media covering Sudan. Yeah. What is it like as a displaced person or with, someone with displaced family to be viewing that on your social media feed every day um i it's a really weird way of saying it i like it i think it's important i think if we had um i think if this had been pre-social media era no one would have known what's going on i actually don't think we would have been able to fundraise or do anything in the same way i think when it's in your face and it's on socials it is undeniable so if it's undeniable you know that's undeniable

then you, I think as a person, then are able to question and be like, okay, what can I do? Yeah. I think it's like anything like human behavior is like, if I don't know, I can't do anything about it, or I don't care. Whereas this is like, you can't not care because it's right there. And so actually I think every single time I scroll and I see someone who maybe isn't Sudanese actually posts about Sudan, it makes me really proud that I'm following that person. Yeah. And that person would care about me or my family or my life without me having to say to them,

hey can you care so whenever I do scroll and if anyone posts it I'm considering how much is going on the world right now and how somewhat hard it is to pick which calls or whatever that means I think that whenever I see it and especially because I see it from people that I follow I to know it makes me really proud of those people to care and even if people always like what's the point in social posting on socials but I I fully disagree with that I'm not I don't get angry people for not posting because I think everyone has their own whatever situations going on for them personally but posting on socials does make a difference because awareness makes a difference because awareness changes laws and changes people's lives

and creates you know creates a conversation so even if one person it's just like you guys doing this podcast you might have listeners viewers who don't know anything about sedan but this just starts a conversation and so if we can start the conversation the next part of the conversation is like okay what can I do in the next part of that is like where can I send my money there's always the next thing to be able to do. So I actually am fully for seeing things on socials. It's hard, don't get me wrong, it's hard to see. And sometimes I do get emotional and sometimes I do cry

and sometimes I'm just like in bed and feel like I need to like put my phone down for a second and take a minute. But that's really selfish of me actually because I can take a minute. And I have the privilege of taking a minute. So then I think to myself, if I'm able to take a minute, I wish for them that they could.

but they can. Yeah. So I try my best to be like, yeah, it's hard to take in, but it's important to take in and because I'm privileged, actually. I'm super privileged to be in this position. So if the least I can do is see on socials. That's such a, like, it's such a great way of putting it because social media does have such power.

Such power. And like, it can reach people and like, and like you say, information is key in this. And just like more people know and the more they can talk about it. It does make it. Posting does make a difference. Everyone's like, oh, we posting someone's post, what's that really going to do? Of course it makes a difference. It raises awareness. Awareness changes actual laws.

Like, that's the whole point in awareness. We didn't have the whole organizations that focus on this stuff. We didn't care about awareness. We wouldn't have PR companies because that's the whole point is to raise awareness for things. Yeah. Like sell things or tell people about things. So it does make a difference. So for anyone who's just like, oh, like, what's the point in me posting?

You'd be surprised. You're probably educating someone who didn't know anything about it. And if that's the little you can do, it's not a lot. Yeah. When you look up figures, like, there was one from the UNHCR saying that they're 29%. They only have 29% of funding that they need out of 100. And if you think, like, if you're sharing one reputable source story along, and that's one donation, like, it's just like a chain. It's so easy to, like, used to be word of mouth hearing about these things or people like going around collecting donations.

Nowadays, we can click a button on our phones. click a button your Apple pay will put it in a real excuse there's literally no excuse yeah and that's the thing I think organizations like the UNHCR people are like oh they must have so much money they're so fine like supported by the end blah blah but it's like no that's like not the case like 20 it's so such a small amount yeah yeah I also don't think any money is enough money yeah if you're thinking about 12,000 people that are displaced but like there were like this is 12 million sorry I've looked at 12 million and like that's it's so many people if we put it into context of just what London has like seven million so think of like London being like all of London being displaced and then some

you know so like it's not like it's like the whole more than double of Scotland being displaced so it doesn't even have that many people in it so in concept it's like it's a crazy amount of people that need support there is not one organization doesn't have that amount of money to support 12 million people and then think of the amount of other people they support and other causes in the world. Organizations like this, you can go on the website and you can understand where your money's going. Like, it's not like they're hiding it from you. I was going to ask and I obviously don't want to trigger you or anything like that, but generational trauma is a thing. I guess your, your family have experienced like some really distressing things. Like do you feel like you

say you live grief every day? But like is that? Is there still a sense of that in your everyday work? Like, do you feel like you have to dedicate a lot of your life and your career to your country, your home? Because there isn't that attention on it that needs to be. It's a really interesting question. And if it's too deep, I'm sorry. No, it's not too deep at all.

It's something I have been struggling with a lot recently. I really, it's actually weirdly a conversation I actually had, even last night with a friend. They sent me something and they're like, oh, these people are looking, this NGO or looking for Sydney's artists for something. And I turned around and I was like, you know, like, I can't, I don't know if I can dedicate my entire career to just fundraising for Sudan and for this to be my sole focus. Like it's, it's, it's, it's, I feel really, really conflicted about it.

I do a lot. I do a lot of fundraising. I do a lot of, I do as much as I can physically do. But also fundraising, I'm not surviving on fundraising for, things. I also need to earn money. I also need to grow. I also need to develop. I also need my career to move forward. So it is hard because since things have happened in Sudan, so much of my mentality and my work and everything has become thinking about Sudan. Yeah. And to a sense, it's hard to say, but in a sense it is a detriment to my career because it means I'm not

focusing maybe on like, oh, doing another Instagram post of this thing or like getting that brand deal or pitching, doing a pitch deck for this thing. In my head, I'm like, what am I doing? I should be doing this thing for Sudan. But isn't that a little bit of survivor's guilt? A hundred percent is survival. Like, you still have a life that you're entitled to live. But how do you make peace with that?

And it's something that I'm literally, as we're talking about it, it's trying to figure it out in real time. I'm trying to figure out in real time sort of how to, especially over this last couple of weeks, actually, how do I also not martyr myself to the cause where it becomes the only thing that I care about so then I can't focus. I do definitely think in a lot of my work,

I made a short film recently and I think that it's influenced by the idea of like we have to also preserve our culture and our rituals and sort of as a filmmaker and as a creative, I want to make work that eventually I can pass down to the next generation and be like, this is what we had and this is who we were. Like my film's about Hena and the ritual of Hena and it's such an important part of our culture.

And so I do think there's a responsibility to want to sort of immortalize our rituals and traditions. Yeah. That leads quite nicely onto, like, one of the questions I had, which is, like, what role do you think that storytelling has in preserving a country's culture, you know, from filmmaking and music? I think a huge role, huge role.

I think actually, for me, that's what storytelling is. It's not just commemorating the old, it's creating newness from the oldness and it's creating new stories but it's also again sort of keeping these stories that we once had I think a lot of music especially Sudanists we have such a love for music and a love for dance and it's a very joyous country it's very joyous culture so a lot of that is sort of like the young generation making new sounds out of the sounds that wear and making sure that people know about our sounds as a filmmaker

I think it's really important that the work that I do not all of it but a lot of it is influenced by my culture and my heritage. So I think storytelling, to be honest, even for raising money, like you have to story tell. You have to humanize things and you have to make people understand. And I think as the diaspora, it is absolutely our duty to make sure that we try our best to celebrate who we are so that people know and so that, yeah, Sudan doesn't come back

for a long time that we have something to look at, something to look to. So when another Sudanese artist does anything, whether it's music or art, whatever it is, I'm always so excited. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is so cool. Because it's our responsibility. Like our parents and our grandparents, they did what they could do. They did it pretty well.

But it's now our responsibility to take that Trojan horse and be like, okay, what can we do with this? And I feel a huge sense of responsibility in what I'm doing. But again, it sort of goes back to that same thing of like, at what point do you get to move forward as well? Yeah. And does everything you do as a creative? of have to be influenced by who you are or where you're from,

especially when you come from conflict and you feel a responsibility. Again, I do not know. Something I'm trying to figure out and I haven't quite figured out morally where I stand with it, yeah. So I don't know. The family and friends that you have

that are still in Sudan or the people that you know that are displaced, do they have questions for like what's going on outside? like do they they like wonder are things being done like are people fundraising for us is the aid like to put it horribly is the aid coming like yeah I mean luckily in my part all most most let's say 90% 95% of my family have all now left Sudan okay and are either in Cairo the UAE um all around the world wherever they can get to sort of but most predominantly most in Cairo um do you know

It's weird. Sydney's people aren't grabby by nature. Our culture is very much like the more you have, the more you give. And so I've always, that's always a thought I've grown up with, which is like, oh, if you have, you should give. And so there's never been a sense of, well, we need and we want. I have never ever had a conversation with a Sudanese person that's been displaced and they've said, hey, so where is the money going or we need money or can you help us? No one has ever asked me for help. I've just helped

I think at the stage when I was fundraising to organize some buses at the very beginning of the war I reached to some friends and I said if you have families who have anyone who's disabled or elderly like I want to help

and they would be like oh can I bring my cousin is there space on the bus for my cousin is there space in the bus for da-da-da whatever that was at the very beginning and that's the most

anyone's ever asked of me which is crazy to think about it they don't ask for help that's the thing that's what's crazy about it it's not like a grabby culture or where they're like, help us. No one's asking for help, but it doesn't mean that they don't need it.

Yeah, you know. Absolutely. I think that's, I think that is the main thing that we're trying to bring it back to. Like, this is so human. This could happen to anyone at any point. Yeah. And it could be family. It could be friends of family.

And like, they just shouldn't, we should move away from that, them versus us mentality. And I guess, yeah, just like even reading about the women, that have been exposed to like the gender-based violence and things like when when money and funding isn't having the money to go into programs and things like that then where are they left I'm sure that like their lives just could be elevated and they don't even know it and it's like we know how good we can get it in these kind of situations of desperation here it's just so it must be so hard to live every day just like knowing that you have nowhere

to turn yeah there's nowhere to go there's nowhere to go there's nowhere to go Yeah, there's nowhere to turn, there's nowhere to go. That's why the organisations like this are so important. Yeah. Because it's just a lifeline to have somewhere to turn. Yeah. Like, you're right. We live in the UK or people that live in like this part of the world.

Like you can go to your government. You can go to your local council. You can go to charity. It's such a privilege. It's such a privilege that we are absolutely spoiled in the amount of support we have. That we don't realize what it's like to wake up and be like, oh, I can't ring my doctor. Or I can't get this thing or I can't go to a food bank. I can't, I literally can't do anything.

like I think if you just think about it like sort of waking up in the morning and being like okay I just need to survive another day okay I just need to get through another day like this is literally day to day survival yeah it's like it's no joke so I think that yeah it's I don't think people compute what it's like to just be surviving day to day no yeah I mean on a personal level how are your family doing at the moment they're okay um I think there's a lot of um I think there's weirdly like a lot of moving forward and a lot of grief at the same time um people are graduating now people are getting married people are trying to do move on i think for a lot of us here especially like sort of in the west as we like to call it i think the grief is sort of

so ingrained that there is a level of sadness that we all just sort of have with each other and i think you know people have like crazy insomnia and you know you know you know, health issues and just like the grief can be all encompassing and it can come out in different ways. You know, my great aunt passed away a few days ago and I remember thinking, gosh, if she was allowed to die in Sudan, imagine the funeral that she would have had and imagine the people that would have come and said goodbye and imagine, you know, we would have got to celebrate this life of a woman who ran schools and NGOs in Sudan and supported hundreds of thousands of people. She was an incredible person and yet she's passed away and we just have to.

send a text message or do a phone call because we can't even really celebrate her life and so there's this generation it must be really sad i can't even compute how sad it must be to be at the end of your life and you're not even getting to rest your head where you had your life yeah and you are somewhere wherever you've ended up and how sad that is that life has ended up this way yeah i almost sounds awful but i'm almost grateful that my grandparents weren't alive to see this and they got to die in their homes and they didn't have to live to see with the sedan that they had thrived and put so much into and grown so much into they didn't have to see the sedan that is now because for my parents it's soul-destroying I can see it in their eyes I can see it in their faces that's their whole

childhood it's their whole adulthood it's everything they've ever known yeah is up in flames and so I don't know it's a hard question how are my family yeah I loaded load it's a lot It's a loaded question and it has so many feelings that I think I can't really encompass it into like one feeling. It's just, it's just there. It's just dread. But we still, like, we move on. Every day is a new day and every day is a day where you can be like, okay, what am I doing today? What can I do today?

And I'm trying, even personally trying my hardest to be like, okay, I need to soften how hard I am on myself. Yeah. about how much I could or couldn't do. I think really, really honestly, if I can't be this honest, it's just like, yeah, my work has really suffered in the last two years because my focus has always been like, okay, what more can I do? Okay, maybe I could do this fundraiser. Okay, maybe I can do this post or maybe I can do edit this video.

Maybe I can do, and so I just feel this overdrive of constantly doing things about Saddam, which I think my work has suffered from it. Yeah. But I don't regret it because I've also been able to help hundreds of people. It's just, I think no one knows where to go next. or what to do next. Yeah, and I can't even imagine the mental battle you have with yourself every day being displaced, thinking like, there's a chance maybe I could come back here in two

months, or maybe I should plan ahead just in case I can't come back here in two years. And then there's 20 years that have passed and it's like, oh, like, I can never go home. You're so right, though. It's a really funny that you say that because my cousin had that conversation. I was in Cairo and I was with her. She was like, do you want to go and look at this flat with me? And I was like, yeah, they needed a bigger place. There's so many of them.

now also generationally living in the same places. And she was like, yeah, but I don't want to sign on to a year at least. And I was like, why? And she was like, because maybe we'll go back within a year. And I was like, well, you're not going back within a year. But I didn't know how to sort of say that to her. Of course, yeah. And I remember the landlord was like, actually, I really need you to sign on for two.

And she was like, no, but I think we'll go back in a year. And I was like, you're not going back in a year. But I can't say that to her. And I can't. I didn't have the bravery to say, you're not going home. so they live in the hope that they will go home and so you kind of have to you kind of have to you're getting emotional taking me cry it's awful that's just yeah sorry I just can't even imagine yeah it's like not having an end point yeah there's no end point of like this thing that's

happened that's so bigger than you and like affects you every single day and like I just just going about your everyday going back to uni having two classes when it's like oh my god the place that i grew up in my family i don't even know if they're like like surviving or thriving yeah um yeah sorry yeah yeah no it's true though but that but that really is it like you have to be like you just life just you have to still make life worth living yeah and you have to find a way to make life worth living and i think that is um the grace of sydney's people that they find a way yeah like i'm I'm so proud of my cousin who sent me a graduation photo the other day, and I had graduated.

Yeah. And so you just have to find a way. You have to look to what it can be eventually. Yeah. And we do have that. We all can. And that is credit to the people. Yeah.

They find a way. They find a way to make it happen, to make it work. And if they can, and then we can do something to support that. Yeah. I mean, that and that's the aim with, like, getting the emergency assistance that they need. but it's not just that it's making sure they can live the rest of their lives with dignity with the power that they had when they were a baby like they weren't a child and their parents had aspirations for them thinking god this is going to happen to me when i'm 18 like you just don't

know life couldn't like changes in the flash in a flash right and it did for them and it's not fair well we've obviously spoke about the power of social media in terms of bringing attention to the the conflict, the crisis, the people that need help, where would you recommend is a good place to start with that? For someone that is maybe avoids looking at things like that, because it is distressing, it is a lot, but to get information from a trusted source, what would you recommend?

I mean, I actually think socials are a really, really good way to do that. I know sometimes it can be overwhelming, looking at news stories, and it's very newsy and it's kind of hard to stand and these two warlords and all this kind of information is quite, hard to understand and compute but if you go to socials and you find just those influencers that can tell you

things and you can learn and follow day to day I even follow quite a lot of influencers I'm like oh I didn't know that was happening on the ground or I didn't know like I'm not the Oracle of all the news but like I will do it in the way that I can do it but there are plenty of sources and TikTok is pretty incredible in the way it just like feeds you stuff once you start watching stuff

so I do definitely think that I would love for people to look at their feeds and make sure their feeds are not just pure like joy in socials but also make sure that you're learning and like you be so surprised that if you sort of alter your social so that you are learning new information as you're scrolling it's a good way to start and it's a good way to just be like oh I'm informed and then I can talk about this and I can have a conversation about this I would love for people just to be like did you know that da da da da da and just have a conversation about it it's not you don't have to be like

if I don't know I can't talk about it and I think that's what scares people I don't know enough about this, so I can't talk about it. Yeah. You know basically that humans need help. Yeah. And that you can support. And so I would love for people to sort of take away that I don't know and replace it with, well, what can I learn?

Yeah. You know. Incredible. That's really lovely way to put it, isn't it? Like, encouraging people to learn more and just. No one's mad at you for not knowing. No, exactly. It's fine.

Yeah. It's okay. You just got to, like, everyone can start somewhere. Again, we talk about being a child. children didn't know but you can start somewhere and you just like eventually you pick it up and eventually you're able to have the conversation and it's not as complicated as you think and if it is too complicated put the complicated aside and just look at the humans and look at what the humans need and start there it's it's

there's loads of loads of different things you can know but they're such beautiful soft warm people and they and they deserve they deserve support after what's happened to them yeah so yeah and I'm so grateful today we've had the opportunity to partner with UK for UNHCR to be able to understand the roots and the sources where we can get that information and be able to donate and actually help yeah yeah to learn more about you and your family yeah thank you so much no I'm actually also to say like it takes a lot to for you guys who were like oh we didn't we don't know all the facts and figures of this and to be able to be like no but we want to talk about it and it's important and it starts with people like you

and it starts with audiences like yours to be like okay I didn't know about this but this is good and now I've learned something new and I appreciate you guys taking the time to sort of be like I I want to learn and I think that starts a conversation so thank you to you guys thank you it's been a pleasure having you thank you thank you we loved having you badma yeah thank you for joining us tears and all um just if did you want to plug any of your socials or anything like yeah I mean I'm the same on all my socials I'm at basmachlifa on LinkedIn and um on Instagram, I will start using my TikTok a little bit more, but yeah, mainly Instagram and LinkedIn.

You can help people caught in this crisis by searching UK for UNHCR helps you down today. And of course, all the necessary links that you might need will be down in our description, so make sure you check those out. And of course, please like and share this episode with your friends, people you know, so we can all help raise awareness.