The Syrian conflict is among history’s most well-documented events,  yet the vital roles of women remain overlooked. Our upcoming Jalsa podcast series, ‘Jalsa with Syrian Women Politicians,’ aims to bridge this gap. In eight episodes, we’ll explore Syrian politics through in-depth interviews with women who are key players in the political landscape. This series is produced within the framework of the SAWT project, one of the Women Political Participation program’s outputs. The program aims to enhance women’s voice at decision-making tables, through local feminism knowledge production, local and international advocacy, and women’s networking at the global south level.

Archiving Feminist Activism in Egypt is the Arab Initiative Reform’s third podcast series. It takes a historical approach to investigate a mainstream narrative connecting feminist activism in Egypt with the global MeToo movement. Through its five episodes, the podcast creates an archive of narratives by individuals who were involved firsthand in feminist activism in Egypt in recent years. In each episode, activists recount their experiences and share their analysis of the conditions that shaped their activism. Part of our Jalsa | جلسة podcast, this series arranges and officialize these narratives to tell a certain story: the story of an Egypt that has witnessed the proliferation of feminist activists who brought different modalities of activism to correspond with the boundaries – the limitations and opportunities – offered in the local context.

Putting fieldwork at the heart of the conversation, 3ala el Maydan invites researchers, journalists, and art practitioners from the Middle East and North Africa region and beyond, to talk about their experiences, discoveries, challenges, and surprises when carrying out field research or on-the-ground investigations in MENA countries. Part of our Jalsa | جلسة podcast, this new series seeks to build collective knowledge on fieldwork practices to help young researchers and journalists begin their fieldwork journey with a critical eye.

What happens when you become an adult in a context of conflict? How does it affect your choices, your options, your ambitions? In a series of frank conversations between youth in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, we hear directly from them about how war affected their plans, how they have navigated their daily lives in the context of conflict and their aspirations for their futures. Each episode has two youth discussing how they are living through the conflict, how they see their future moving forward, and what strategies they have found to rekindle hope in their lives.