Nick O’Connell
+1 224 500 2707
nick@migrantsofthemed.com
www.migrantsofthemed.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Podcast “Open Encounters” Creates
Platform For Migrant Voices
Humanitarian Storytelling continues in the new weekly podcast
giving voice to African migrants in Italy.
ROME, ITALY 6 August 2019 – “Open Encounters,” the official podcast from Migrants of the Mediterranean (MotM) gives voice to the individual people who have escaped Libya and crossed the Mediterranean Sea before finding safety in Italy.
They are now on their next journeys, of settling their lives in the Italian mainland and in other parts of Europe. The podcast extension of MotM Humanitarian Storytelling explores this aspect of life post-rescue and reception in audio conversation with host and founder, Pamela Kerpius.
“Open Encounters” shares the details of those living and awaiting asylum proceedings in Italy through personal, one-on-one talks. Topics covered are unique to each guest who hail from countries primarily across West Africa, including integration and racism, language, labor and employment, missing persons and more.
Pamela Kerpius calls upon the personal relationship developed with each individual (some having been documented now over the course of years) to create an approachable dialogue for her guests and listeners alike, and to break down negative concepts of “otherness.”
The migration flow in Europe, the US and around the world too often dominates the headlines in political terms. Here, Kerpius changes that, elevating the migration discourse squarely in human terms, refocusing Mediterranean migration as a humanitarian crisis, and introducing the complex, dimensional and engaging people that have heretofore gone unheard.
New episodes are released Tuesdays as they become available, on platforms where podcasts are distributed, including GooglePlay, Spotify, Stitcher, and in August, on Apple Podcasts.
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About Migrants of the Mediterranean
Migrants of the Mediterranean is an online humanitarian storytelling publication that documents the journeys of the individual people who have crossed continents, countries, the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea from their countries of origin to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa––the southernmost European land point from Africa in the Central Mediterranean.
The archive was developed to restore dignity to those who have had it stripped away during travel and trafficking, particularly across Libya where extraordinary human rights abuses, including slavery and torture, have been endured. It is also an account for the historical record. The journey story archive stands as a document from which we can index the realities of migration for some of the world’s most vulnerable at this pivotal time.
Migrants of the Mediterranean founding writer and Italy correspondent, Pamela Kerpius, personally greets arriving migrants in Lampedusa and in cities across the Italian peninsula for one-on-one interviews. Her storytelling continues across the mainland after people are transferred from Lampedusa, often the place of first reception, and documents issues of daily life and integration in Italy while individuals await asylum hearings and their subsequent results.