Ep.14 'I wanted to hold a pen, not a gun' - Activist Jaz O'Hara on the Reality of The Refugee Crisis
Working Hard with Grace Beverley
sophie@grace-beverley.com
4.2 • 904 Ratings
🗓️ 10 October 2022
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jaz O’Hara is the founder of The Worldwide Tribe, an organisation and online community committed to supporting refugees and asylum seekers globally. The platform uses methods of innovative storytelling to share the narratives of refugees embedded in the crisis, inspiring others to get active and inform a new lease for change. Since its founding in 2015, The Worldwide Tribe has been met with overwhelming love and support by its followers, physical and monetary donations inundated by concern and care for the refugee crisis.
Jaz’s devotion to The Worldwide Tribe is inspired penultimately by her adopted younger brother Mez, an Eritrean who made a dangerous voyage across the world to flee compulsory military service. Amazed by her brother’s story, Jaz made a life-changing visit to a refugee camp in Calais, where she saw first-hand the terrifying conditions and extreme challenges that she realised all refugees have in common. Arriving back in the UK Jaz quit her job in fashion and devoted her career to the refugee crisis, intending to raise awareness, share stories and encourage people to help in any capacity.
Now a Human Rights Activist, Ted X and United Nations Speaker and Podcaster, I am blown away by the process of advancement Jaz has made to the global refugee community. Because of this, I have decided to donate all streaming revenue from this episode to The Worldwide Tribe. I urge you to go and see what they do, and if you’d also like to donate yourself please use the link below:
https://www.justgiving.com/prism-worldwidetribe
Topics:
- Introducing her refugee foster brothers - 'My adopted refugee brothers; the inspiration for everything I do'
- Jaz's life-changing trip to the notorious Calais 'Jungle' - a refugee camp in a humanitarian emergency.
- Making the switch to the charity sector from a career in fashion.
- Founding The Worldwide Tribe: a space for refugee storytelling.
- Hindering misconceptions of refugees and how we can help.
https://www.patreon.com/theworldwidetribe
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:24.4 | Make it count with SumUp. Download the app or find out more at sumup.com.uk. |
| 0:32.3 | Life had other ideas for me. So it was 2015, there was a lot in the news at the time about the refugee crisis in Europe. |
| 0:39.8 | As recently as Wednesday, the Prime Minister said taking more refugees from the Middle East |
| 0:43.6 | was not the answer. If we want to learn more about the world and about business and about all |
| 0:48.7 | these things that can kind of better ourselves, then we should be doing more to be learning |
| 0:52.9 | about things that we can really do to help other people too. |
| 0:57.0 | It changed my life, Grace. |
| 0:59.0 | The world kind of isn't built in any way for anything other than people who are born into a country that is welcoming to them just because they won essentially a genetic lottery. The reality of the situation there was so different from the media portrayal of it |
| 1:15.6 | and the people that I met were so heroic in what they'd been through |
| 1:21.6 | and they said to me something that I'll never forget. |
| 1:25.6 | It immediately made me realise that there was something really wrong happening here. |
| 1:41.7 | What's up guys and welcome to another episode of Working Hardly Working, the podcast. |
| 1:46.6 | Today's episode is a little bit different and I'm really excited about it. |
| 1:50.0 | I'm talking to Jazz O'Hara. |
| 1:51.5 | She has a huge amount to share and a huge amount that usually kind of goes unheard about refugees |
| 1:57.4 | and people who are seeking asylum. |
| 1:59.6 | And I really wanted to talk to her today to be able to |
... |
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