What does “development” really mean—and who is forced to pay for it?

Ziada is a climate and gender justice advocate working at the frontlines of renewable energy and community resistance. Trained in medicine, her activism was shaped by real encounters with inequality, environmental breakdown, and lives lost to preventable conditions.

What is EACOP, really? A massive oil pipeline from Uganda to Tanzania—sold as progress, contested on the ground.

The real cost of “development” Displacement. Lost livelihoods. Closed schools. Communities cut off from land and identity.

Why women are hit hardest Economic exclusion, social disruption, and power imbalances intensified inside homes and communities.

Key Takeaway

“We don’t lack solutions—we lack implementation.”

Anyone can use this podcast for free, with attribution to Troublemakers (the podcast). It is held under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License and can be used for radio or any other media.

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What happens when poetry becomes testimony? What happens when a voice carries the grief, rage, memory, and survival of an entire people?

In this deeply emotional and politically charged episode of Troublemakers, we journey through “Vous allez où?”, a haunting spoken-word piece that confronts war, displacement, colonial violence, exile, and the persistence of hope in places the world often chooses to ignore.

Through vivid imagery and painful truths, the poem paints a world where mothers bury children, rivers carry bodies instead of songs, and children draw rifles instead of suns. Yet even within devastation, there remains resistance the stubborn insistence on dignity, memory, and life itself.

This episode reflects on:

• War as a lived daily reality, not a distant headline
• Forced displacement and the psychology of exile
• The silencing of oppressed voices
• Colonial legacies and systems of domination

At its core, this episode asks: Where do people go when home itself becomes unlivable? And what does it mean to continue dreaming in a world built to erase you?

This is not just poetry. It is testimony. It is mourning. It is resistance.

Anyone can use this podcast for free, with attribution to Troublemakers (the podcast). It is held under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License and can be used for radio or any other media.

How do we move from gathering stories to creating impact? How can we be more strategic about story gathering? And who truly owns the narrative - organisations or the communities themselves?

In this episode of Troublemakers, we explore the role of storytelling in activism and development, featuring insights from practitioners working across Brazil and Nepal within ActionAid. This conversation unpacks how stories are gathered, shaped, and used. It explores the role of ActionAid in story gathering and reflects on why rethinking storytelling is essential for justice-driven work.

Guest Host

● Joan Njoroge – Moderator of this conversation, guiding a deep dive into how storytelling shapes advocacy, impact, and community voice within global movements.

Guest Speakers

● Erika Azevedo – Coordinator of Public Engagement at ActionAid Brazil, with a background in journalism and documentary storytelling.

● Anish Shrestha– Communications Manager at ActionAid Nepal, working closely with grassroots communities to amplify lived experiences.

Reflections

This episode highlights a key shift: storytelling must be decolonial, feminist, and human-centred. It’s not just about telling better stories — it’s about better planning and collaboration to avoid overload, more focus on agents of change, and amplifying people’s voices to different audiences.

License

Anyone can use this podcast for free, with attribution to Troublemakers (the podcast). It is held under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License and can be used for radio or any other media.

Resources & Show Links

● Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/troublemakers.podcast

● ActionAid Global: https://www.actionaid.org

● Beautiful Trouble Toolbox: https://beautifultrouble.org/toolbox/