Podcasts
 Updates from International Rescue Committee staff and volunteers doing humanitarian work around the globe.
(Photo: The IRC)
In this podcast from our March 11, 2009 briefing Gideon Rose of Foreign Affairs magazine moderates a discussion between Kurt Tjossem, IRC Regional Director, Horn & East Africa and Michael Kocher, Vice President of IRC's International Programs on the consequences of the closing of the IRC's programs in Darfur, North and East Sudan. The IRC has been delivering aid to vulnerable men, women, and children in Sudan for 28 years and we remain committed to helping Sudanese communities across the country recover and rebuild. Please join us for an inside look into this urgent situation.
(November 2008) During this International Rescue Committee Briefing from the Field, you'll hear from Trinh Doan, a woman who escaped from Vietnam and was resettled in the United States with the help of the IRC. Today she is a senior vice president at the Bank of America and will share her insights about the challenges she and her family experienced as they established themselves in this country.
You'll also meet Dr. Faiz Almad Al Berqdar, who recently escaped the violence in Iraq and has resettled in Salt Lake City. Faiz, who was an oral surgeon in his home country, will share the difficulties he and his family faced as he sought work and stability - particularly in this turbulent economic climate.
Kay Bellor, vice president for resettlement operations at the IRC will also join us to explain how our network of two dozen regional offices around the country is a lifeline for thousands of refugees like our guests. She will also describe the most pressing challenges the IRC faces as we resettle new refugees and how our supporters can help.
Recorded 18 Nov 2008
(June 2008) On May 2, Cyclone Nargis swept through Myanmar, destroying hundreds of villages, killing up to 200,000 people, and displacing more than 2 million others. Within days, an IRC emergency response team was on the ground distributing supplies to the most vulnerable survivors, providing shelter materials, clothing, mosquito nets, and water containers.
The IRC's Greg Beck is no stranger to the devastating aftermath of such a crisis. As the Asia & Caucasus regional director, he has coordinated the rapid response efforts for several catastrophic humanitarian crises, including the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, and this month's cyclone in Myanmar. In a special briefing, Greg provides a first-hand update on the IRC's emergency response efforts. He describes how your support, along with the IRC's swift response and emergency preparedness can save countless lives when disaster strikes.
This briefing is moderated by Scott Pelley, award-winning journalist and 60 Minutes correspondent.
For more information go to - www.theIRC.org/myanmar
(April 2008) The world's fastest growing refugee crisis is continuing to unfold in the Middle East. Five years into the Iraq conflict, more than 4 million innocent bystanders are uprooted and in dire need of help. A team from the International Rescue Committee has just returned from Jordan and Syria, where an estimated 2 million Iraqi refugees are living in fear and isolation. In a special briefing, George Biddle, IRC senior vice president, and Maureen White, co-chair, IRC overseers, describe what they saw in the field and share what they learned from meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with UNHCR representatives, and with refugee families. You will also hear from Fuad Jawad, an Iraqi refugee who fled from his home in 2006. Gideon Rose, managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, moderates the discussion.
For more information visit http://www.theirc.org/iraqi-refugees | Transcript > (MS Word)
(November 2007) In this November 15, 2007 phone briefing, George Rupp, the International Rescue Committee's president and Alyoscia D'Onofrio, IRC's regional director for Congo, discuss the current situation in Congo and IRC’s role. Susan Dentzer, an IRC board member and health correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, moderated. D'Onofrio, who called in from Congo, updated listeners on the IRC’s effort, along with the other aid agencies and Congolese authorities, to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. “Happily it now seems that this crisis is over,” D'Onofrio reported.
By contrast, D’ D'Onofrio said, the situation in North Kivu, where the IRC recently launched an emergency response, has blown up into a full scale conflict among four armed groups. D'Onofrio said that the IRC has been able to bring lifesaving health care to 100,000 people in the region.
George Rupp, who recently visited Congo, noted that the fifth IRC Congo mortality study is due to be published in a few weeks. He described the IRC’s community driven construction programs in Congo, which are involving thousands of citizens in establishing their own development priorities and which are “giving people a tremendous sense of ownership” and pride.
For more information visit http://www.theIRC.org/congo | Transcript > (pdf)
(October 2007) One of the world's most respected war correspondents,
Kevin Sites spent five years covering global war and disaster for
several national networks. Kevin's new book, "In the Hot Zone: One
Man, One Year, Twenty Wars," chronicles the year he spent as a
pioneering Web journalist, posting multimedia dispatches from the
world's "hot zones." Kevin stopped by the IRC's office in New York
this month to speak with IRC staff and read from the book. In this
selection, he describes how he grappled with the best way to tell the
stories of child soldiers, of rapes and of poverty -- stories so
overwhelming they "often have the effect of shutting people down,
rather than helping them step up."
(October 2007) One of the world's most respected war correspondents, Kevin Sites spent five years covering global war and disaster for several national networks. His new book, "In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars," chronicles the year he spent as a pioneering Web journalist, posting multimedia dispatches from the world's "hot zones." In the hot zone Kevin met International Rescue Committee staff, whom he has called “unknown soldiers” and whose work he’s praised. On October 25, he visited the IRC in New York to read from his book and talk about the lesson he learned from the HotZone project: that "war poses as combat but is really collateral damage" — the destruction of civil society. Kevin also took time out for a few questions.
International Rescue Committee Briefing from the Field: Wednesday, June 20, 2007. Bob Carey, IRC’s Vice President of Resettlement; Denise Barrett, IRC’s Regional Representative for the Middle East; and the moderator, Gideon Rose, Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs magazine discuss the IRC’s efforts to address one of the most rapidly increasing refugee crises in the world.
Transcript › (pdf)
(March 2007) The IRC's Emily Holland looks back on her month-and-a-half field visit to Darfur, Sudan. "You never really leave a place like Darfur," she says. "I plan to spend my time working to communicate all I've seen and heard until the displaced Darfuris I've met receive the help they need."
(March 2007) The IRC's Emily Holland describes what a typical day looks like for an IRC aid worker in Darfur and for displaced families who have found shelter in the camps where the IRC works.
(March 2007) Emily Holland speaks with a woman who is in charge of an IRC women's center in Darfur about what women's health really means and what the IRC is doing to help women survive the chaos of the Darfur crisis.
(March 2007) The IRC's Emily Holland traveled to Otash Camp in Darfur, home to 50,000 people fleeing ongoing violence in the region. She interviewed women who have just arrived at the camp and shares their heart-wrenching stories.
In a March 8, 2007 phone briefing, the International Rescue Committee's Heidi Lehmann discussed violence against women. Lehmann, the IRC's senior technical advisor on gender-based violence, was questioned by Susan Dentzer, an IRC board member and on-air health correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. During the special International Women's Day session, Lehmann talked about her personal experiences working with women in Congo, Thailand and elsewhere.
(October 2006) International Rescue Committee health unit director Rick Brennan talks about how the IRC is saving lives in Congo and what ordinary citizens can do to help. Brennan describes the “extraordinary, heroic effort” that went into conducting the three IRC-sponsored mortality studies that found that nearly 4 million people had died in Congo during the war, most from preventable diseases.
N.B. The petition campaign Brennan refers to in his remarks has ended. However, you can learn about other ways you can support the IRC's work in Congo and around the world here.
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