PODCAST · society
The Archive Speaks
by The Refugee Archive Team
From war zones to resettlement camps, from data to diaries, this podcast brings the archive to life. The Refugee Archive is a nonprofit organization and global center dedicated to preserving and amplifying the voices of refugee women leading households. Featuring refugee women, scholars, and archivists, it champions the power of voice, the preservation of memory, and the stories that shape policy, hearts, and minds. therefugeearchive.substack.com
Episodes
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How The Jungle Took Her Siblings One by One | DRC: Juliette Part 1 | Ep 34
Before displacement rewrote her family’s story, nine-year-old Juliette grew up surrounded by love, open green lawns, and the warmth of a bustling home in Katanga, DRC. But at 3:00 AM one morning in 1993, that peaceful childhood was shattered by sudden gunfire. In this first chapter of Juliette’s...
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How A Single Mom Rewrote the Narrative for Refugees: Yvonne Part 3 | Ep 33
Arriving in Nigeria as a penniless refugee with a six-month-old infant strapped to her chest, Yvonne faced the immediate, terrifying reality of starting from absolute zero. With her home back in Cameroon reduced to ashes and no family to rely on, she found herself sleeping on bare concrete floors...
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The Terrifying Night That Changed Her Life Forever - Nigeria: Yvonne Part 2 | Ep 32
After earning her nursing degree and starting a new life working in Thailand, 26-year-old Yvonne believed she was stepping into a chapter of security and freedom. But when personal choices, cultural expectations, and political unrest collide, her life is radically rewritten overnight. In this...
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What Happened to Her at 9 Years Old Shocked an Entire Village - Nigeria: Yvonne Part 1 | Ep 31
Before she became a humanitarian and a refugee in Nigeria, Yvonne was a young girl growing up in Kuke Mbomo, Cameroon, in a family where caring for others was simply part of everyday life. In this first chapter of Yvonne’s oral history, she takes us back to her childhood in a large polygamous...
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Ep 30 | Madeleine's Story Part 3 – Uganda: Life Saving Marriage
"Every single day is a battle to survive." Madeleine is a Congolese refugee and single mother living in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda, where she is raising three boys on her own. In this chapter of her oral history, she describes the daily struggle of finding work, securing food…
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Ep 29 | Madeleine's Story Part 2 – Uganda: Life Saving Marriage
Madeleine walked by foot from Goma to the Settlement in Uganda… In Part 2 of Madeleine's oral history, a Congolese refugee currently living in Uganda recounts the night armed men attacked her village in Rutshuru, North Kivu, and set her home on fire.Madeleine was already a mother of two when the...
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Ep 28 | Madeleine's Story Part 1 – Uganda: Life Saving Marriage
She believed that marriage was her only way out… Madeleine is a Congolese refugee currently living in Uganda. In this first chapter of her oral history, she takes us back to her childhood in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she grew up without her parents and was raised by an...
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Ep 27 | Merveille's Story Part 4 – DRC: Motherhood Is More Than Giving Birth
What makes someone a mother? In the final chapter of Merveille’s oral history, she reflects on the years she spent raising her daughter while completing her education, working as a teacher, and navigating the challenges of life in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Merveille first took...
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Ep 26 | Merveille's Story Part 3 – DRC: Fleeing Kabutembo
That time war reached Merveille’s doorstep… In this final chapter of Merveille’s oral history, we follow her through one of the most difficult periods of her life as the M23 offensive reached Goma in early 2025. Living in Kabutembo, near the city’s airport, Merveille had begun building a future...
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Ep 25 | Merveille's Story Part 2 – DRC: A Mother Without Giving Birth
What makes someone a mother? In this second chapter of Merveille’s oral history from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she reflects on growing into adulthood while unexpectedly becoming the primary caregiver for her older sister’s daughter. What began as a temporary responsibility became a...
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Ep 24 | Merveille's Story Part 1 – DRC: The Daughter of Katana
In this first chapter of Merveille’s oral history, we travel to Katana, a rural community in South Kivu, Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Long before she became a university student, a teacher, or a woman navigating the realities of conflict and displacement, Merveille was a child…
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Ep 23 | Elizabeth’s Story – Nigeria: Displaced by Herders, Raising Four Children Alone
In this first oral history from Benue State featured on The Archive Speaks, we hear from Elizabeth, a displaced mother whose life was shaped by poverty, motherhood, violence, and survival. Raised in rural Benue after losing her father at a young age, Elizabeth grew up helping her mother farm and...
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Ep 22 | Ruth’s Story Part 3 – DRC: The Cost of Staying
This is why she chose to stay. In this final chapter of Ruth’s oral history from the Democratic Republic of the Congo 🇨🇩, she reflects on life in Goma under rebel control, raising a young daughter alone, and surviving a conflict that has shaped nearly every stage of her life. Ruth remembers...
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Ep 21 | Ruth’s Story Part 2 – DRC: “I Stayed Because I Had Nowhere Else to Go”
What happens when the future you imagined for yourself disappears almost overnight?In this second chapter of Ruth’s oral history from eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo 🇨🇩, she speaks about becoming a young woman, experiencing love for the first time, and the events that led her into…
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Ep 20 | Ruth’s Story Part 1 – DRC: Gift of Simplicity
How would you look back on your childhood after living through war and displacement? In this first chapter of Ruth’s oral history, we meet a young woman from Walikale in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo who remembers life before conflict altered its course. Today, in Goma, where…
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Ep 19 | Marie’s Story Part 3 – DRC: “I Carry Everything Alone”
What does it mean to carry a household on your own—every day, without pause? In this third chapter of Marie’s oral history, we move into the structure of her daily life in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Not as a single moment of crisis, but as a system of responsibilities that...
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Ep 18 | Marie’s Story Part 2 – DRC: A City Under Watch
Goma is a city where life continues, but not freely. In this second part of Marie’s story, we return with her to a place she knows well, yet experiences differently each time she comes back. She speaks about living in Goma now—not as a child moving between homes, but as a mother responsible for...
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Ep 17 | Marie’s Story Part 1 – DRC: Raised Between Moves
What does it mean to grow up in a place where conflict never fully leaves? In Part 1 of Marie’s oral history, we meet her as a daughter of eastern Congo—born in Masisi, raised between Bukavu and Goma, and shaped early by movement, family expectations, and instability. Long before she became a...
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Ep 16 | Kolima’s Story Part 2 – Rohingya: Life in the Waiting
What does life look like when displacement stretches into years? In the final chapter of Kolima’s oral history, we hear from her as she lives now — inside the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. Her days are shaped by sickness, ration schedules, paperwork, and the quiet labor of keeping a...
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Ep 15 | Kolima’s Story Part 1 – Rohingya: The First Stitch
What does it mean to learn survival before you have words for it? In the first chapter of Kolima’s oral history, we meet a Rohingya woman whose early life was shaped by family, restraint, and the quiet labor expected of girls as they grew into womanhood. Her story begins in Rakhine State…
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Ep 14 | Lucille’s Story Part 2 – Congo: The Day the City Went Silent
In Part 2 of Lucille’s oral history, she returns to the morning everything changed in Goma. One moment, the neighborhood hummed with its usual rhythm — children walking to school, women bargaining at the market, the soft echo of church songs drifting between houses. And then, without warning, the...
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Ep 13 | Lucille’s Story Part 1 – Congo: Before the Rebels Came
What does childhood look like in a place where conflict is always humming in the background?In this first chapter of Lucille’s oral history, we meet a daughter of Goma, North Kivu — a girl raised between volcanic soil, family tenderness, and the constant shadow of armed groups moving across her...
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Ep 12 | Sakena’s Story Part 4 – Rohingya: Let Home Live in Our Hearts
In the final chapter of Sakena’s story, we return to her quiet corner of Cox’s Bazar, where life moves between memory and prayer.Each morning begins with the call to fajr and ends with the sound of her children’s laughter — reminders that even in exile, life continues. Sakena reflects on what it...
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Ep 11 | Sakena’s Story Part 3 – Rohingya: Lines That Feed Us
In this chapter of Sakena’s story, we return to Cox’s Bazar — a place where survival is measured in queues. Every morning, women like Sakena rise before dawn to stand in line for water, for food, for the small things that keep life going. These lines, long and winding, have become more than just...
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Ep 10 | Sakena’s Story Part 2 – Rohingya: River and Smoke
When danger came to Gudusara, Sakena’s home in Northern Rakhine, it didn’t arrive all at once. It came in whispers first—then in fire, and footsteps, and the sound of people running. In this second part of her story, Sakena recounts the night her family fled Myanmar. The smoke behind them, the...
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Ep 9 | Sakena’s Story Part 1 – Rohingya: The Days of Blue Skies
Before displacement. Before the border crossings. Before the word “refugee.”There was a girl named Sakena, in a small village called Gudusara in Arakan State, Myanmar — where blue skies meant freedom and family filled every room. In this first part of her oral history, Sakena, a Rohingya mother…
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Ep 8 | Noor's Story Part 4 - Palestine: Planting Hope
Female heads of households are often the invisible backbone of displacement. They carry a heavier weight in society. Raising children, holding families together, and nurturing the next generation even while enduring loss themselves. Their voices are rarely heard, yet they shape the future in...
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Ep 7 | Noor's Story Part 3 - Palestine: What's Enough for Us
In Part 3 of Noor’s 4-part series, we follow her through the most difficult turning point of her life: leaving Gaza. After losing her husband Khaled in the bombings of northern Gaza, Noor became the sole head of her household. With her son at her side, she faced impossible choices — surviving...
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Ep 6 I Noor's Story Part 2 - Palestine: The Turning Point
In Part 2 of Noor’s story, we step into the turning point of her life in Gaza. October 7, 2023 — a date the world came to recognize in headlines. For Noor, it was the day her life split apart. What are arguments and debates on the tip of our fingers were Noor’s lived reality: bombs falling…
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Ep 5 | Noor's Story Part 1: Palestine - Threads of Home
In this first chapter of Noor’s story, we trace the threads that formed her identity long before war and loss. Her roots run through Gaza, from her grandmother’s stories of being displaced from Al-Masmiyya in 1948, in her father’s belief that daughters should be educated, in the elegant stride of...
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Ep 4 | Ataa’s Story Part 4 – Shape of a Warrior
What does it mean to become the head of a household overnight? In this final chapter of Ataa’s Story, we follow her through one of the most overlooked transformations in displacement: the moment a woman becomes everything—mother, father, provider, protector. After her husband’s sudden departure...
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Ep 3 | Ataa’s Story Part 3 – Syria: The Heart of the Home
"I’m one person—but I have to be a mother, a father, a teacher, a provider… I have to be everything."Ataa speaks from her shelter in Zaatari Camp, where daily life for a woman raising four children alone is both routine and relentless. In the third chapter of The Archive Speaks, we trace Ataa’s...
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Ep 2 | Ataa’s Story Part 2 – Syria: The Border Between Two Lives
"Do you know when you have two lives? Like on your left, you have this life—and on your right side, a completely different life…" Ataa describes how she felt crossing the border of Syria and Jordan.As Syria’s uprising turned into full-scale war, hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced into...
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Ep 1 | Ataa’s Story Part 1 – Syria: From Books to Bullets
In this moving first part of the 4-part series of Ataa’s Story, titled From Books to Bullets, we are invited into the early chapters of one woman’s life in Syria—before she became a refugee, before she was forced to flee, before the war redrew the shape of her days. Ataa was raised in a modest...
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The Archive Speaks: Why We’re Telling These Stories
The Archive Speaks: Trailer Welcome to The Archive Speaks—a podcast by The Refugee Archive, a digital oral history project focused exclusively on the lived experiences of female-headed refugee households (FHHs). In this introductory episode, we share why this archive exists, what stories we seek…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
From war zones to resettlement camps, from data to diaries, this podcast brings the archive to life. The Refugee Archive is a nonprofit organization and global center dedicated to preserving and amplifying the voices of refugee women leading households. Featuring refugee women, scholars, and archivists, it champions the power of voice, the preservation of memory, and the stories that shape policy, hearts, and minds.
therefugeearchive.substack.com
HOSTED BY
The Refugee Archive Team
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Archive Speaks have?
The Archive Speaks currently has 35 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Archive Speaks about?
From war zones to resettlement camps, from data to diaries, this podcast brings the archive to life. The Refugee Archive is a nonprofit organization and global center dedicated to preserving and amplifying the voices of refugee women leading households. Featuring refugee women, scholars, and...
How often does The Archive Speaks release new episodes?
The Archive Speaks has 35 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Archive Speaks?
You can listen to The Archive Speaks on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Archive Speaks?
The Archive Speaks is created and hosted by The Refugee Archive Team.
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