107: Understanding the War in Sudan

On April 15th war broke out in Sudan. The fighting between the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group and the Sudanese army has devastated Khartoum, spread across the country, and an estimated 1,800 people have lost their lives, with hundreds of thousands displaced.

Dalia AbdelMoniem joins us from the UK, where she has been living since fleeing the war in April, after a missile struck her home. Dalia is a former journalist who moved back to Sudan in 2013 after living in Egypt for more than two decades. 

For more information about how you can help the people of Sudan, follow these organizations and individuals:

Nazim Sirag, for updates and information about how to help.

HomeTax Sudan (for donations)

Jia | Juwayria

Sudanese American Medical Association

Hadhreen | حاضرين

Episode 56: The Protests - Algeria One Year Later

While it might seem like an obscure topic due to scant coverage in the Western press, a quick review of the facts makes it clear that we ignore Algeria at our peril. First of all, it’s Africa’s biggest country by land mass, and home to a population larger than Canada’s. It’s also home to Africa’s largest company, state owned oil giant Sonatrach, a major exporter of fuel to Western Europe. We dive deeper into the nuances and into the layered intrigues that define Algeria’s history, and what’s been happening since popular protests removed longtime ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power almost exactly one year ago.

We speak with Mehdi Kaci, an Algerian American activist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mehdi recently returned to Algeria to see how things have unfolded since the ouster of Bouteflika.

Episode 52: The Protests - Lebanon

Since mid October Lebanon has seen some of its largest protests in years and, in a country where sectarianism has been institutionalized since the end of the 15-year civil war, it’s noteworthy that one of the key issues protestors are rallying against is sectarianism itself.

We talk to activist and development professional Jad Sakr in Beirut to get more context on the causes and aspirations for these protests, as well as the many challenges to be overcome.

This episode is the first in a series that Latitude Adjustment podcast will be putting out on current protests taking place around the world. Be sure to check out the other episodes in our ongoing series.

#LatitudeAdjustment_Protests

Episode 30: Fatma Naib - We Need To Talk About FGM

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a non-medical procedure that involves partial or radical removal of young women’s genitalia, and while widely practiced in parts of Africa and the Middle East, is neither limited to these regions nor defined by theology or religion. The practice is typically linked to a right of passage, sexual purity, or as a marker of cultural identity (or all three), and its impact on the lives of tens of millions of women is both cruel and often deadly. The UN is working to eliminate the practice by 2030, and it is the subject of Fatma’s Peabody Award-winning film, “The Cut”, which she and her team completed for Al Jazeera English in 2017. Our conversation also focuses on the broader questions around navigating multiple cultural identities and contexts.

The subject of FGM makes some of us more than a little squeamish, but it’s important to move past our personal sensitivities and make some time to inform ourselves about a practice that is impacting the lives of women around the world, and perhaps closer to where you live than you might realize. And while the practice itself might be fundamentally rooted in ignorance so are a lot of the popular perceptions about the it, so it’s important that we leave our assumptions and pre-judgements at the door and listen so that we can take meaningful action to help eliminate the practice.

“Saleema initiative was launched in 2008 by the National Council for Child Welfare (NCCW) in collaboration with the UNICEF Sudan, with the aim to support the efforts to abandon Female Genital Mutilation“…