Check out a selection of themed radio shows for World Refugee Day

Tuesday 20 June is World Refugee Day.

To mark the occasion we’ve put together a list of Refuge Worldwide shows that spotlight the individuals, movements, organisations and cultural collectives that work to protect the rights of refugees and those who are criminalised for crossing borders.

Starting local in Berlin, check out this interview by Nicky Böhm with Lucy Nganga of International Women* Space, an anti-racist, feminist political group of migrant and refugee women who have been one of the vital pillars of Berlin’s refugee rights movement for over a decade. More recently, Sarj of aequa Radio was joined in the studio by Azeb and Charlie from the Berlin-based Solidarity with Refugees in Libya network, a coalition of local refugee rights groups who work to elevate the voices of those trapped in Libya’s brutal detention system.

Learn more about the refugee experience with this personal account from Sara, a girl from Syria who has had to flee war twice, featured on this episode of Johanna Urbancik’s On The Ground series. Or, listen to Nour on Flip The Script Palestine, discussing her experience as a documentarian interviewing some the last surviving Palestinian witnesses of the 1948 Nakba.

For shows that cross the border between politics and art, tune in to this freeform conversation on Solidarity between members of Palestinian collective Exist Festival, who work to forge cultural dialogue across the Palestinian refugee diaspora. Check out BB’s two-part Sounds of Sumud show, illustrating life in the West Bank by using Palestinian songs and voices from refugee communities, and this episode of Flip The Script with Mo and Phileas, two artists with first-hand experience with Germany's asylum system. 

Exploring similar themes with an eye on the war in Ukraine, listen to this conversation from earlier this month between Ukrainian writer and editor Mariana Berezovski, Rachel Almeida & Richard Akingbehin, discussing the potential of electronic music as a political battleground. 

For an insight into some of the organisations working on the ground with refugees across Europe, listen to these shows with Projekt009, an organisation providing direct aid in refugee camps and crisis zones; the activists behind Radio Calais on the UK’s southern border; and Mobile Refugee Support working in camps in northern France.

Finally, we’ve been honoured to broadcast interviews and speeches by some world-renowned humanitarians. Revisit legendary activist, philosopher and writer Angela Davis’ speech in Berlin, recorded last year at the 10th anniversary of the O-Platz occupation. And, listen back to this interview from 2021 with Sara Mardini, who was then facing trial for her search and rescue activities on the island of Lesvos, and continues to work as a tireless advocate for refugee rights.