TOR116: On Our Radar With Libby Powell

What is it like to not have a voice? More specifically, what is it like to have a voice - a powerful, intelligent, passionate voice - but one that no one can hear? This is the case for, literally, millions of people in the world today who have stories to tell, and stories that need or should be heard, but who are not able to access mainstream media channels that we all still turn to for our news. These are stories about fleeing violence, about what its like to be disabled or about trying to see where the road from poverty to prosperity begins. Now, I know that social media has evolved this equation, to be sure. However, I also know first hand that even when you have access to all the right tools, and resources and great stories, it is still a massive effort to break out of the overwhelming ocean of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and thousands of other "individual voice outlets" to be heard at scale. Libby Powell, my guest for the 116th episode of the Terms of Reference Podcast, is implementing a vision for giving voice to the unheard in mainstream media. She is the founding director of an organization called On Our Radar, a non-profit communications agency that seeks out, supports and helps to amplify unheard voices. Libby started out like many of us: for several years she worked in humanitarian aid supporting health and advocacy programmes in Palestine and the refugee camps of Lebanon. But then she retrained herself as a multimedia journalist to cover development and rights issues for the UK press. And, as you'd expect, she's no slacker - in 2010, she won the Guardian International Development Journalism award and in 2014, she was listed as one of Journalism.co.uk's top female innovators in digital media.