 Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all our followers. My name is Luca La Marte. I am the IUM Social Media Manager. I'm here from Geneva. And welcome to all of you, those who are joining. Welcome today to a fantastic conversation that will feature some of the main authors of a recently published publication between the iDiaspora Project and Routed Magazine. iDiaspora is an initiative of IUM that we'll be introducing shortly. We'll be discussing today how global diasporas are being empowered through the digital era. And we'll be discussing with three guests as well as Marina Manke, who is the director of the Labor Mobility and Human Development Division in IUM's headquarters. We'll be discussing how diaspora groups around the world are stepping up to fight against COVID-19 and to support local and international communities. Let me just introduce you our guests before we'll give them and to welcome them ahead of this conversation. Today we'll be having three main guests, Ali Ahmad Safi, Aratrika Ganguly, and Kirste Quarteng. Ali is a PhD candidate at the Department of Migration and Globalization at the Danube University in Austria. He received his master's degree in 2015 and has been working as a consultant with the Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation in Vienna, a trained doctor. He has worked in various international research and media organization and has published extensively on political, security, and social issues in Afghanistan. He's very interested in migration, diaspora, and non-state security actors in Afghanistan. Ali is also pursuing a PhD at the Department of Comparative Indian Language and Literature in Calcutta. She is also teaching as a guest lecturer, and she's the co-founder and coordinator of Calcutta Comparatives 1919, which is an independent forum research of scholars in humanities and social sciences. She is focused on Southeast Asia, Kuli literature, migration, women narrative, performance studies, and African literature. Kirste is a storyteller and curator of stories. She's currently a doctoral candidate at SOS in London in the Department of Development Studies, and she is a recipient of the Royal Geopolitical Society Dudley Stamp Memorial Award. She's also the founder of NANA Project, an online platform dedicated to preserving Ghana's history through first hand accounts of Ghanaian people. So without further ado, let me add our guests. So hello, everyone, and please unmute your microphones. Welcome to all of you. I will hand over to Marina, who will be moderating some of the conversation with our guests today. And for those who are joining again, welcome to our live Empowering Global Diaspora in the Digital Era. We are live from Geneva, UN headquarters. And if you do have questions, please leave your comments on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn will be gathering the best comments and asking some of the questions to our speakers today. Over to you, Marina, and thank you all again for joining. Thank you very much, Luca, for the nice introduction, and also welcoming a very warm welcome into our guests, and the winners of the competition of, you know, the best article, the best piece, which we have put together in the publication. I'm really privileged to have the three winners today with us out of 19 excellent articles put together about the topic of diaspora and by diaspora representatives themselves. We have really excellent three authors. And what we were thinking is that I'll start a little bit mentioning the initiative within which we are meeting today. A few words about that. Also, why I am our organization, International Organization for Migration is talking about diaspora and why do we want to extend that topic now also with the context of the digital collaboration, digital age. So that was the topic of our publication Empowering Diaspora, working with diaspora in the digital transformation process in the digital era. So you already mentioned the guests. Welcome Ali Ahmad. Welcome, Aratrika, and welcome, Kosti. Really great. Let me just, before starting maybe from you, Ali Ahmad, I will say a few words again about why and how come we all come together here today, across the world, representing indeed the voices of diaspora from different parts, different regions and different presenting different topics or formats of collaboration of diaspora. So for our organization, it's a very important area of work. We have been working on engaging with diaspora for a couple of decades, our programming on supporting return of qualified professionals from diaspora communities back to the home countries to engage with the communities at home, but while still keeping their residence in a new environment. So this collaboration across communities, across societies is absolutely dear to our agenda of migration, embracing human mobility as a really positive feature and phenomenon of our society. So the digital era brings a lot of new opportunities for us to promote this collaboration, promote this support. As a concrete example is indeed our iDiaspora initiative, which Luke already mentioned at the beginning, that is a platform, online platform, which we put together. Again, understanding that it is no longer the response of one individual or one organization linking to one community back home. It's really bringing the voices of all diaspora organizations together and the platform which we created a couple of years ago, iDiaspora is promoting that space for us to come together to exchange lessons, learn to have a hub of information, good practices. So again, the topic, the overarching topic of the publication and of your articles has been technologies, digital era, and which opportunities and potentially risks those new realities create for our work on diaspora engagement or for diaspora organizations or individuals themselves. So let me turn to the first topic. The theme of your article Ali Ahmad was technology and crisis response. And specifically, you were looking in your article to the role of Afghan diaspora residing in the Netherlands in the Dutch communities. And of course, when we conceived this publication, when you conceived your article, the main global topic was COVID-19 pandemic, it still remains the main topic on the agenda. And it will be great to hear, of course, the quick pitch presenting your article, your key messages from it today. But maybe I don't know if I can step over and very unexpectedly ask you if you have any comments or observations on your interest in supporting communities back in your country of origin right now. So whether specifically knowing the quite quite a challenging situation there. So our understanding would be that as with many crisis diaspora communities are the first respondents and they are the ones who really start looking into ways of supporting their loved families or communities back home, regardless of disruptions, regardless of major challenges be it caused by nature or maybe politically caused. So I don't know, I don't want to put you on the spot. But if you could maybe say a few words also to that, that'll be great because I am personally very, very interested because right now everybody's looking how to support the people in Afghanistan. So again, if you have a few words, that'll be great. Yeah, and the concrete question then of course, would be about again, COVID pandemic, it doesn't disappear, it goes, it transforms, we still speak about lack of access to vaccination in many countries. So how could again diaspora be the ones who can support the communities families back home, but also the cause of international community to become more effective in responding to pandemic to more effective in responding to crisis. So let me hand over to you with a presentation of your article, as well as maybe some thoughts on the questions which I have posed. Thank you very much. Thank you for organizing this wonderful event. I really enjoyed collaborating with Routed Magazine and Ed diaspora and part of this publication to be part of this, this publication. Basically, what I did for this article, I was very, very much interested to look at, you know, the, because my research focuses on the Afghan diaspora in Europe, particularly focusing on the Afghan diaspora organizations and their role and their commitment and engagement, not only for the diaspora who reside in Europe, but also how they engage transnationally and how they engaged with, with, with homeland. And the particular article that I work with, actually, it is a diaspora organization which has been based in the Netherlands, as you rightly said. And this is a very specific, a typical diaspora professional organization, which is only established by young medical professionals and of the Afghan diaspora community in the Netherlands. And with a very specific target group and targeting very specific group in Afghanistan. I've, as I've said it in the article that there's a group of young, you know, Afghan professionals in the Netherlands in 2014, they established this, particularly using technology to support the healthcare system in Afghanistan. And also, I've also carried a very special interest in the healthcare system because of my first degree in medicine. So, and very curiously, and with, and passionately following their involvement and how the healthcare system operates. And the technology and using technology, technological tools for, for this diaspora, for this particular diaspora organization, which is called the Medical Committee Afghanistan Netherlands. For this organization, the technological tools and online platforms and internet has been a key component of, of directivity because what they established actually, they established to, to promote and share knowledge and transfer knowledge through internet and online and online platforms. And before I just gave an update on what, you know, how, how they dealt with COVID-19, they had two online platforms, which is up to date. It is an online platform for healthcare and medical resources used by more than 1.7 million people worldwide, only by, by mainly by clinicians and, and medical personnel and also e-surgery, which is quite, you know, for, for low resource country like Afghanistan e-surgery and what the practices that has been carried out in, in, in the developed world. So the diaspora McKin, the diaspora organization has tried to promote these two main platforms to support the healthcare system and to train and to engage the Afghan medical health workers with, with the most advanced methods and platforms. And when the COVID-19 began, actually, the, the members of the committee, I've, I've been communicated, I've communicated with them on several occasions, basically. And also, as I said, based on my own personal interests in medical sector, and also people working in Afghanistan, that there was a sort of confusion in Afghanistan in terms of, in the very early stages, like in late February, March 2020, on, on the diagnosing and treating and recognizing, you know, the, the, the COVID infection, because there was very limited number of the testing kits, and also the clinical diagnosis and clinical symptoms and signs of, of COVID. So what the diaspora organizations as a very professional and very typical medical sector, they started to react and help the online services that use Zoom and also use the social media platforms and engaged the Afghan diaspora doctors and medical personnel working in Dutch hospitals to provide training and to provide you know, knowledge and information on COVID-19. And they did it on weekly basis, basically, how if, if there is not a testing kit, and if a patient with certain symptoms and, and signs come to, to, to the hospital, how they should be treated, how they should be diagnosed and how they should be, they should be treated. So basically, the first three months, it was more like on, on, on transferring the knowledge in the medical sector from, from the Netherlands to Afghanistan. And the, the, the internet platforms actually made it accessible, and not only to, in Kabul, where they used to work with doctors and medical health workers in, in Kabul, in the past with, with the other projects, but this time with the COVID, actually they expanded their, their activity and engagement and included more hospitals and more doctors from different provinces from the Southeast West and North of Afghanistan, actually to, to, to include and what they did actually, then they recorded and uploaded their, their work on, on the social media platform in order to, you know, stay there so people or the doctors could, could use it at later stages. And the, the issue, of course, it, it still face challenges and, and, you know, because access to internet, it was easier in Kabul than easier, but more difficult, for example, in Western Farah province, or in Eastern Nangarhar province for doctors didn't have access to stable internet, but still they, the, the, the, the, the engagement and providing this, this online services to the Afghan doctors was much easier and also covered more and more areas. And another interesting, actually, and, and opening actually initiative for the Afghan doctors, because not everyone, not every doctor they speak English or a foreign language, but another interesting benefit was, you know, all these trainings and information was provided in, in Afghan local Pashto and Dari languages. And that removed the barriers of, you know, understanding and, and, you know, getting like, using every part of the, of the training. And, and I think I spoke also with, with beneficiary, a medical doctor who used, we, we used to study in Afghanistan. And he, what he explained that, you know, the services or the knowledge that we got, and used the, these three, the first three months of the COVID-19, because there was very limited, of course, knowledge testing kits, but also there was no training for them. There was no training for the first six months by WHO or by the Afghan government. So this was kind of, you know, a very handy and the best training that they got, you know, and the first hand knowledge from the Dutch hospitals. I'll come back to this a bit later, but coming to two questions, how diaspora responded to, to the COVID, sorry, to the, to the crisis, recent crisis. Yes, Afghanistan, unfortunately has, you know, collapsed again. It's, it's more than a month. And I've been talking to several diaspora organizations since then, and the reaction and, you know, the response to the crisis has been different from organization to organization, and also members of the diaspora community in Austria, in Germany, and, and other, as a few other European countries. Some of the diaspora organizations with very established routes and very established programs and projects in Afghanistan with continuous funding from the hosting nations. They managed to respond to the crisis in a more positive and, and very effectively. And this is, this was very clear that for a lot of Afghan diaspora, actually many Afghan diaspora in Europe, they have tried to, they have supported or contributed in the evacuation programs. Not every effort in the evacuation program was successful, but it was successful to some of the diaspora organizations that they had very strong routes and established projects in the developmental sector and in the women's sector, some succeeded to evacuate some members of their, some of some members of the organizations or their partners from Afghanistan. But very interestingly, which I spoke with one of the diaspora organizations just last week, they said that they have been able to respond, actually, by raising fund to the crisis. And, and the person I spoke to said that basically the crisis has kind of provoked, you know, Afghan diaspora and also members of this hosting nation to, to, to, to very quickly and a very fast way to raise fund. And just one diaspora organization just transferred like hundreds of thousands of yours, just within, within a few weeks to support and financially the project that they had already started in Afghanistan. And, and, and a lot of this funding actually interesting that it comes from, not only from the members of the hosting nations, but also from the Afghan diaspora themselves, because if, if a diaspora organizations has a good reputation and has, has, has provided an history of, of providing assistance to, to women, to children and to the internally displaced people in Afghanistan, then it helped them, that reputation helped them to raise quite a large amount of money and send it within just in a few weeks. And of course, banks and, and all these other sorts of, you know, official financial channels were, were, were closing Afghanistan. So, but they found the diasporic ways to, to transfer the money in order to support the projects and also to provide those first aid to the families and to the internally displaced people, which has been huge, like those internally displaced people were forced to move from Northern Kunduz and also Faria provinces to Kabul and they were just in parks in Kabul. So, yes, the response has been, has been positive for some, but it has still been a lot of challenges for a lot of diaspora, diasporic community and diaspora organizations. Funding has been a main, main challenge, contact and, and also worries and, and fear of losing loved ones and family members. It has been tremendous. And a lot of family members in, for many Afghan diaspora have lot jobs, especially women who, who are in media sector or in government or even teachers and teaching high schools. They have lot jobs and a lot of even main have lot jobs. So it's, it's been a chaotic situation and the diasporic community has been more engaged in the last four to five weeks than I think the neighbor before in the last 20 years. So it's been, it's been, it's been great. And I will deal with questions or any, any, any questions that the audience or, or you raise. Thank you. Thank you so much. And of course, it was not fair to ask you that question unexpected on the spot, because I think this is something which is on the mind of all of us. And I was looking through the, the chat, I see a lot of actually participants of our discussion today also are commenting on the importance of supporting people in Afghanistan. And, and this is interesting how the intersection between the response to COVID-19 and now also the situation, they all coming together. So let me move to the next colleague and next participant of our competition, Aratrika. And now to you. We switch a little bit the topic moving away from the issue of crisis towards the identity. So what does this mean to go to a new country, new environment to leave your friends behind, or maybe to be born in a new country, but have parents of a different origin. So in your article, which is titled Instagram and your identity for the descendants of indentorship, you are writing about that aspect of transnational identities. So can you briefly present your article initiative itself? And what do you think, in terms of that aspect? And how this whole notion of new identities emerge? Please. Thank you, Marina. Thank you, Luca. I really enjoyed this collaboration. Thank you so much for inviting me here. And yes, actually, you know, for my dissertation, for my research work, I'm working on indenture laborers, mainly focusing on the indenture laborers within India, but also on some indenture laborers, who moved from India to many other countries as bonded laborers, post-slaver, the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. As we know, in 1834, the transatlantic slave trade was abolished. Officially, I mean, there was still some places where it happened, but most places by 1834, it was abolished. And the Coolies who were the indenture laborers, they were used to be called by the colonizers, it can be the British, the French or the Dutch or the Portuguese or the Spanish. They used to call these bonded laborers mainly from the Indian subcontinent. And this laborers was sent from various parts of the Indian subcontinent, that is the present day countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, etc., to the various other colonies of the empire. And this descendants like they were sent as bonded laborers. They were, we get actually two narratives, two parallel narratives, from archival sources, from literature, as I am from the background of comparative literature, I'm focusing only my primary texts are mainly from literatures written in by both the descendants of indenture laborers and by indenture laborers as well, and by other people who witnessed indenture ship. And we get two parallel narratives. One states that Indians were forced and abducted by middlemen like Sardars, Narcotics and they were sent to these plantations as bonded laborers that sugarcane plantations, tobacco plantations, or railway constructions. And another narrative says that some actually some Indians were like, were suffering from famine, were suffering from poverty, were suffering from orthodox Hindu caste practices, women were bounded by caste practices, they wanted to escape this, they wanted to escape poverty. But actually, little did we know like little did they know that they will fall from one part poverty to another kind of poverty, they will fall from one kind of slavery to another kind of slavery. Some scholars nowadays says that we cannot call indenture ship a substitute for slavery. Some scholars say that am I audible? Yeah, so some say that indenture ship was a substitute for slavery. And some says no, that it was an Indian caste practice, the Hindu, especially the orthodox Hindu caste practice that made this laborers who as like they were willing to go as slaves, I'm sorry, that they're willing to go as laborers. And in this article, particularly this article I wrote for out in magazine, either as Pura, I considered it on the descendants of indenture ship who are now living in the various, because some people went to this various colonies of Suriname, Guyana, Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius and many other places, the various Caribbean countries, various countries of South Africa, Southern part of Africa and various other places. And these people some came back and some stayed back. In 1917, officially, fully chewed or you can say indenture ship was abolished with the help of legendary nationalists like Mahatma Indian National and Mahatma Gandhi and other people. And but some people like most of them, like 90% of them stayed back in the colony. There was no way of coming back for them. Either there was a shortage of money, or there was that they found a new kind of freedom on those lands that was not available in the subcontinent for them. And this people made their own identity. And this people made their own culture like we can see in one of the books by Totodham Sannad, he was himself a Puli. He came back to India, but he wrote how people in the colonies, like he was from Fiji, how they made their own culture, how cast people from various castes used to live together, people that was unthinkable in the Orthodox community of India, people from various religions like Islam, people following Islam, people following Hindus, they stayed together. And also people following Christianity, they stayed together, the celebrity festivals together. That was, that was, that was what happened in India, but not in that way that happened in the colonies. And this people created an identity. Because a multilingual, a cultural identity, it was very different from what happened in mainland India. And this people who stayed back, they formed families, they became mostly became agricultural farmers, and then the later joined other industries. And their descendants have used Instagram as a platform for not only for showing about their own history, but reclaiming their own past and their own identity. Some says that call us Puli. I don't don't say that Puli, the word Puli is a racial term. Call us we are proud that we are Puli. We have both have Indian heritage, and we have the whatever the exquisite countries they're present in, we have the heritage from this country. And some people of this descendants were in Instagram, some of their own accounts, some have some of their own pages like the Bidesia page, there's this page called the Brown List. We also show some, some, this has shared some of the indenture shape. And there are many other pages, many other accounts that I mentioned in my articles. And that they focus on the indenture laborers and the Puli's. But like, it's very, it's very unusual that recently when I was going to one of those, some of these accounts, I saw two accounts have been removed from Instagram, it's very unusual. But some accounts are still there and some makes memes, some makes the kind of jokes on what happened with the Puli's. But it's an it's an way of you can say, because whatever happened with their ancestors, whatever happened, the pain they went through the torture they went through, they want to reclaim back their identity. Because and some people like Gautra Bahadur, which we love, they are the, you can say the products of double diaspora, because their ancestors came from the subcontinent of India. And they went to certain colonies and stayed there as indenture laborers, and their grandson or great granddaughters, they're going to the global north, or other places of the global south, and to for better employment opportunities. And they are having two kinds of diasporas in there. And they are they wants to try and reclaim their identity. You can see Gautra Bahadur's group, a Puli woman, a Buddhist of indenture, she does the same by narrating her experiences of a great grandmother, Sujadia. Also, this Instagram accounts I'm talking about some are like the Puli teams, the Bideshya, Bideshya history, the BG Diaries, the jihadi sisters, the breaking ground silence, there is a cutlass podcast, the all of the doing and yes, the Bideshya project, the Muslim Indoor Caribbean Collective, the Puli woman, there are so many accounts of the indenture laborers, the descendants of the indenture laborers, who wants to finally reclaim their identity, the reclaim and like show to the world what exactly is happening with this indenture laborers, the descendants of the indenture laborers. They are the products of multiculturalism, they are the products of political journalism. But at times, like I have seen in many accounts, people have posted about how they and they maybe their ancestors are not given post the colonizers left, once they got settled in the country, maybe it can be Fiji, it can be Ghana, it can be Suriname, any country, they are not giving exactly the same kind of attention that they deserve. They were by the indigenous people who are already living in that country, there was some racial discrimination, which is present in Africa, the southern parts of Africa as well. And even some still today, some people fight this racial discrimination. And they are not considered pure quote unquote Fijian or pure Canadian. We know the very famous Nobel Prize winner, Eminem Nobel Prize winner, V.S. Nikol. His family was also from the, I mean, the, the descendants of indenture laborers. Even he, when he went to London, he settled there in the United Kingdom, he even said that I, I, he started hating his own country, not because that, not because he hated it. I mean, he had, when he came back to India, he didn't feel that kind of connection with India, although he had his roots in India. But what I said is that I am not, I don't, I haven't got that opportunities in Sri Lankan. Even Bridgeville is a very famous, is a very famous academic, is a very famous scholar, is a very famous writer, which is presently in Australia best in Australia and New Zealand. But he was from Fiji and he was like expelled from his own country, due to several political reasons, I don't go into that. But he said that I am, maybe India has been my home country, in the sense that I am a descendants of, from India, but my country is Fiji. I am from Fiji, my identity as, as a Fijian. And now I am as a Fijian, I'm not getting that kind of importance, I'm not getting that kind of love and respect from my own country. And this kind of things are like, you can see in all the Instagram accounts I've mentioned, this is the same thing they are also saying. And there are some Instagram accounts, they're talking about Bollywood songs, it's a very famous film industry in India. Bollywood songs, they're talking, creating jokes and memes on India, that as a, as a woman from India, I can relate to, I have never lived outside India, I'm born and brought up in India, but I can relate to that. Maybe their counterpart in their country might not relate that much to that, but I can relate more to that. We as Indians can relate more to those kinds of memes or jokes or songs they, they show in their accounts. This is also kind of identity that is happening. They are trying to, I mean, can say like reclaiming the past and creating the future. Like someone is living in Fiji, though obviously they want to keep some of the heritage from India. They listen to Indian songs, they grew up learning Indian achars, they grew up listening to Indian tales of mythology, of the Ramana, of the Mahabharata, but at the same time they are truly a Fijian. They truly belong to the country, their own new country, their host country. I'm not even a host country, it's their own country now. It may, maybe it was a host country for their great grandfather or their grandmother, but for them it's a new country, it's their own country. This kind of identity shift is happening in the present generation of indentured, the descendants of the indentured laborers. Okay, they are not the indentured laborers now, they're grandparents for the indentured laborers, or they're grandparents for the indentured laborers. This is happening and not only in the Instagram accounts, I confound them in the, they have the Facebook accounts, the Twitter accounts, they are, they have some other, other whatever social media accounts we can relate to there. We can see this kind of things are happening. Non-personality, I haven't been to any of this country, but I have only conversed with some people only through via social media, and it's, it's amazing to see how we can relate to them and how I can personally relate to them. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much, Aratrika. It's amazing when you were presenting that concrete example of, of people from your country, from your culture. Of course, people who are not maybe familiar to us, all those notions sound a little bit unusual, but they are in the end about the same. It is about the fact that we don't belong to one, one cell or one identity or one part of the society. So the interesting bit about diaspora and people going and developing those ties is that we start acquiring new identities, and sometimes we even start playing these identities in one context or the other context. So it's amazing, and of course social media Instagram allows us to really learn about those experiences, allows us to really enrich our own thinking, because we always speak about the importance of being open and tolerant to the different realities. And the way how you start getting that tolerance is when you start learning about those cultures. If you haven't traveled, if you stayed in one place, it's challenging for you to understand why do you need to start doing or accepting people doing things in a different manner. So the whole identity is so complex, and I have my own personal example. I think I told many of my friends and colleagues about my own son, who is, whose father and mother are of Russian and German origin, but he was born in New York. So he has three passports. He's young, he's 21, and it's amazing to see how the young people now start using their identity or referring to him being Russian in one context. Or usually he says that I'm Russian in the context of not being in Russia, but in Russia he wants to show that he's different and referring to him being as German or American. It's amazing how all those relationship and and richness of cultural identity, social and through generations, is becoming a reality. So the world is different and the digital space allows us to learn about that world. So I would like to maybe turn now to Kersti, and I know you wrote about the youth and specifically coming from Ghanaian as part of diaspora and the Concrete Initiative Clubhouse. So we're thrilled to learn about your experience, your thoughts, your article and also maybe a bit of observation or thinking about the future of diaspora and the young generation of diaspora. Specifically please, over to you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I've really enjoyed learning from my colleagues and I can definitely relate to the experience of your son. I have those who are familiar with Ghanaian culture. You can see that my surname is Ashanti, but my accent is American and that's because I was born and raised in the United States to wonderful Ghanaian immigrant parents and it's my life experience that has that was the catalyst for me getting into the research that I'm doing now and my PhD is on the transnational experiences of second generation Ghanaians. And by second generation I mean children who were born outside of Ghana to at least one Ghanaian immigrant parent. So in my research one of the things that I'm looking at is how the next generation, the second generation of Ghanaians are using digital spaces to maintain their connections to Ghana, but also to each other in the diaspora communities and that's where I kind of, you know, I decided to write about Clubhouse. So Clubhouse is a new wish app. It launched in March of 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Most countries were locked down at that point so everybody was, you know, and everyone was inside more or less and with that I was, you know, on Twitter and I was seeing in the Ghanaian Twitter sphere you know conversations like, oh Shata Wale, who's a big Ghanaian dancehall artist, oh Shata Wale was in the Ghana lounge or, you know, this person was in, you know, this group on Clubhouse and I'm like, okay, so you know, what is, what is this Clubhouse? And to me it looks like the young people were using this new platform as a way to connect with each other and have conversations that they probably wouldn't be able to have otherwise. In fact, one of the people that I spoke to and I was writing the article I asked him, you know, what was the draw for you in joining Clubhouse and he said having, you know, conversations with Ghanians and he himself I think was in Mexico at the time and he's in Clubhouse rooms with people, Ghanians who are in Russia, Ghanians in Canada, Ghanians in South Africa and to him he said that felt very magical and so I believe that the second generation Ghanians are using not only Clubhouse but other social media platforms as a way to, to keep the connections. So in, so the Ghanian diaspora is actually very large. I believe in, as of 2004 we need to get some more, you know, more data on this but the last time a survey was done there were about three million people in the Ghanian diaspora and like I said that was in 2004 and so before we had all the digital platforms and social media platforms that we have now for people in the Ghanian diaspora to remain connected to, you know, to the family in Ghana or their family in other countries they had to, you know, write letters or they were using calling cards to, that were very expensive to try to remain connected to, to their loved ones in Ghana and trying to, you know, stay abreast of what was going on in the country but now that we have so many ways of remaining connected it's a lot, it's a lot easier and so what Clubhouse has done, like I said, it's brought all these, you know, Ghanians all over the world together and there was one room, one, one Clubhouse group that was very, very popular, it's called the Ghanian Lounge. They've gone a bit quiet but, you know, as things have opened up in certain countries it seems like some of the activity in some of the Clubhouse groups has gone down but at its height the Ghanian Lounge, they were having different rooms every day on various topics and from looking at the topics that they were discussing and engaging in you could see that these were issues that were very important to the younger generation of the Ghanian diaspora so there were things around language because language acquisition in the diaspora is a, is a very sore spot for a lot of people, there are a lot of young diasporans who for one reason or another are not as fluent as they would like to be in their ancestral language so what the Ghanian Lounge did as well as other Clubhouse groups have done is that they had, you know, people who are fluent in the language give lessons for people that that wanted to learn and that was something that was very important and very helpful to a lot of the younger, younger generations of diasporans. There are also conversations around, you know, diaspora, diaspora privilege and and citizenship and this was something that's, this is, citizenship is something that's very important to not just the the younger generation of diasporans but to the Ghanian diaspora is at large as well as the historic African diaspora because Ghana has, it's positioned itself as a pan-African nation state and about two years ago now they had a year-long commemoration of events for the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans arriving in the in the Americas and this was called the year of return and as part of the year of return they wanted, you know, it wasn't just the Ghanian diaspora who was invited back, you know, home to Ghana during this time, it was also the, you know, the African American diaspora, a Caribbean diaspora, pretty much anyone of African descent around the world was invited, you know, back to Ghana during this time and with that, you know, as people are, if you've talked about identity, you know, people are seeking to, to belong to certain spaces and citizenship is, for a lot of people, is seen as the the key and the most important way of belonging to, to a nation state. However, there are some, you know, there are some, some questions around that and so in this clubhouse, clubhouse from that, I was in, they were having a discussion about like, okay, so you yourself, you were born, you know, like me in the United States or the UK or South Africa or wherever, to, to Ghanaian immigrant parents, constitutionally you are entitled to Ghanaian citizenship but is that, you know, something you should really be entitled to because you weren't, you know, born in that country. So it was, it was a very interesting discussion about just hearing what, what people thought, whether there, there's some who are like, well, you know, no, because I wasn't born there and then somewhere like, well, yes, just because, you know, my lineage is there, I still care a lot about what's going on in the country. I feel like this is something that I should, I should have access to. So as I said earlier, you know, things are in some of the clubhouse groups, I have gone a bit quiet as countries are starting to open up but there are still very active clubhouse communities for, for Ghanians and one is the Ghana town hall and every Saturday they kind of have a space where they just give a rundown of different events that have, or different, you know, news, news points that have happened in Ghana or in the Demingian diaspora and I myself, I joined, I joined clubhouse, I joined clubhouse because I was curious about what was going on and I actually, for the Nanna project, I did a, I hosted an event in the Ghanian lounge about the importance of Ghana's history because I knew it was a way to reach a lot of Ghanians at once and, and that was, it was very exciting to do that. So as, as, you know, as things are opening up, it's interesting to see what, what clubs are still continuing to go on and what are, what other clubs are trying to take a break but we're still seeing a lot of, a lot of discussions around things that are important to the second gen around, you know, the different clubs around languages, so the Da'a club, Ewa club, the Fante club, those are still going on strong and then the Pan-Ghanian clubs, as I call them, like the, like the Ghana town hall, like Ghana full, from all those different clubs are, are still going on. So I'm curious to see how clubhouse will continue to, to be, to be used by the second generation and subsequent generations of Ghanians and also how they are integrating clubhouse and Twitter and all the, you know, you know, Instagram is also a very significant platform amongst the younger second generation of Ghanians. So, so yes, I think there are a lot of interesting things going on and I think the time will tell how, how things will continue to go. Absolutely, thank you so much, Kostya, as you were talking, I was also thinking, you know, you raised a lot of interesting questions. Do you have a right to citizenship if you are not born in a country? But you know, there are different approaches to citizenship and while we spoke about the transformation of identity with the Radrika in terms of social identity of, of diasporas, I think the new reality digital connections also bring some transformation to the notion of state and belonging to a country. So, in our organization and I am, we actually defined diaspora very broadly. We, we do not say that it's based on the specific criteria, but we'll speak about the very important, you know, parameter of having that connection with a country, being passionate, having the need to go to those communities, those spaces, digital spaces which are created and really identifying yourself with a specific, belonging to a specific culture, a specific country. So the self-identification which is very broad is the parameter which we believe is important. Why is it important? Because it mobilizes people towards action, towards changing something, towards supporting the community, towards coming together and raising some very important questions, towards trying to be together and really introduce that change. So I don't want to say too much about the work of our organization, I am, I think we mentioned, I just wanted once again to thank our partners, Routed Magazine. I'm not sure we managed to mention them because it is a true collaboration with Routed Magazine and it helped us to expose, to get access to these wonderful minds representing different parts of the world. I'm thanking again our guests today and I also saw lots of questions coming up and observations so, but luckily I don't have to deal with the duration of questions and answers and I can pass it to my dear colleague Luka and we are here at your disposal. Luka, how do you want to use the remaining few minutes we have together? Thank you Marina. I actually did mention Routed Magazine but it's very good that you flag the collaboration again for those who are interested in reading the publication. I'll be adding the link to the publication at the end of at the end of this broadcast so if you want to read it, it's available, it's digital, it's in PDF format and you're all welcome to visit the website of iDiaspora if you're also interested in working with our team. I was really intrigued by some of the presentations and before we move back to our guests and this time we'll go in reverse order so we start with Kirsten and we'll go to Latrica and then to Ali. Just one question for Marina because we mentioned the iDiaspora project but we haven't really unpacked what what IAM is doing to try to maximize the potential of diaspora as development actors so maybe Marina you could unpack a little bit more what your division is doing and what iDiaspora as a project is planning to do before we move back to a couple of questions from our communities for the guests. Well listen, I think it's very boring what IAM is doing. We're an international organization, we are talking, we're working with governments, we're trying to raise attention to the topic because the fascinating work is really what the diaspora organizations and individuals like our guests are doing so what what we are trying to actually promote is the knowledge and connection across all those different initiatives spread across the world so that diaspora feels empowered. So the platform, the iDiaspora, it's not a project by the way so it's not a standard project, it's an initiative of ours because we felt that it's important to really not have different events talking about diaspora but us as the organization which has been working in this area for quite some time to really bring pull those initiatives together. So it's a vibrant digital platform where we offer open opportunities for collaboration, for a discussion, storage of documents, we're still developing that platform and we are welcoming everybody to join and become a member of our iDiaspora community because we hope that this will then become a place to go and it is already a place to go for I don't know six to seven hundred members of our community. Maybe one little announcement if I can make what we have in mind is actually in 2022 is to organize a global diaspora summit together with the governments and this is our comparative advantages that we work we are intergovernmental organization we work with all parts of societies so we hope to be able to invite everybody at least virtually in our new digital world to attend that summit where we will be taking stock of the work on diaspora engagement with governments with different international partners hoping to be able to announce that in a few months but that's the nature of work to convene to bring people together to identify good practices and to support where we can let me stop here Luca. Thank you Marina while Marina was answering the question I put the link to the publication but I'll be going back at the end of the live to perhaps leave more information about the diaspora but here's the I was really intrigued by by your by your presentation we don't have a lot of time but I have a couple of one question for all of you if you can please keep the answer a bit short a bit shorter than your previous intervention because we don't have time to to stay for another hour even if the topic is very interesting Ayam we've also been super intrigued by by clubhouse but we've noticed that since other platforms have basically copied what what clubhouse has been doing have you noticed that especially with the Ghanaian diaspora some of these communities moving from clubhouse to maybe other platforms such as twitter spaces or facebook or instagram rooms and how are how is the community adapting to to this ever-changing landscape thank you um I have seen some some conversations that were happening on clubhouse now happening excuse me now happening on uh twitter spaces but I haven't really seen much happening on instagram or facebook to me it seems that the um the communities on clubhouse that are I guess very loyal to clubhouse or that's just where they've decided to continue having their conversations in light of you know what um what the other social media platforms are doing that's where they are but I do think things like twitter spaces and instagram rooms and all these other things that have been coming up it's just giving the diaspora more opportunity to connect because it's not everybody that's on clubhouse I think up until just I don't know a few months ago or for a while at first um clubhouse was only on iphone sorry um a clubhouse was only on iphone um I think they're now on android but anybody can get on twitter spaces so so yeah that's true um can you maybe repeat for our followers what were the main rooms or what are the main rooms that they are they can follow some questions we're asking if you could repeat again so like I said Ghanian Ghanian the Ghanian lounge is still the largest um clubhouse group like I said they have been a bit quiet as of late so I'm not sure how active they are but I think it's good just if you're on clubhouse just to follow them just in case they start you know doing more activities other one that I follow is um Ghana town hall which has a you know they have different things different events different clubhouse rooms uh during the week and then on saturday every saturday they have a room where they just give a rundown of what uh what's been going on in the country so I would say those are the two there's others like if you're interested in languages like the God God lounge you know Fanti ewe things of that nature if you search on clubhouse as well just Ghana a lot of you know I believe there's over 50 or 60 a Ghanaian you know clubs on clubhouse so you could do that as well but Ghanaian lounge and Ghana town hall I would say are the good ones yeah from my experience the Ghanaians are rocking it on the clubhouse way more than Nigerians he said that not me I would also say that and the Ghanaian Jollofrice is better but I might be staying alive for that with my friends yeah thank you Aratrika there was a question from you which and they were asking what um um the main benefits for of using digital platforms in your line of work if you could maybe unpack a little bit of um on that yeah in my line like in my research work yes what what have been the main benefits of using digital platforms in your work you can maybe unpack that a little bit there was a question from um an indian user from uh linked it okay thank you so much for the question uh during this time of pandemic it's everything the digital world is everything not only I can connect with my primary sources my secondary references but also I'm getting some information like I got from this instagram account because in when it comes to digital world like instagram or facebook or the twitter space there is no there is no border there is no feed there is ninjas there's there's just only instagram there's an account where you can have both the cultures together presented and it has helped me a lot in my research work yes I I have been connected to so many lovely people I have been I spoke to like I invited uh professor khatorabu in my forum I could connect it to so many people who are descendants of in-natured liberals who are working on in-natured ship that was not possible for me physically it's not possible to travel so much so yes you tell Patu amazing for me at least especially during this time of the pandemic yeah I think it's been uh it's been helpful for all I've been already warned by by some of our users not to start the Ghanai and Nigerian war again so please forgive my previous remark um thank you Rakhiti and Eletrica sorry and Ali there was there was one question from a user I just marked it at the beginning of your presentation and towards the end of your presentation somebody was asking where they can find the research that you mentioned throughout your presentation if it's something that's available to other maybe academics if you could maybe let us know if some of what you mentioned is already available if it's and when it can be found thank you thank you I think some of the research actually it has been like has been part of my field work which will be published soon hopefully or at least not towards the end of next year but the rest of the research I don't know exactly what the question refers to what part of the research which I can provide the sources for but if it is and my research has been on on the diaspora for the migration globalization department where I do my PhD in creams but I mean if there is any specific area which I mentioned and and he wants reference and I will provide the reference but for part of my field work will be will be published of course maybe Ali you can if you want you can leave your your work email address in the comment section for the other for the user to contact you by that yeah okay so yes it's been over an hour it's been an interesting conversation but I think time is up for today I think it would be great if we could host more of these conversations and perhaps join that together with the diaspora group and some of you on maybe some clubhouse rooms or Twitter spaces to see where else we could bring people from the diaspora groups together and share information about what you all are doing to help your local and national and also the international community I think it's been tremendously helpful for us to understand what you all are doing and I thank you very much on behalf of IOM again just to before I conclude I want to thank Marina Manke from the LHD division in IOM for joining us today Ali Ahmad Safi Atatrika Ganguly and Kirstie Quarteng sorry if my pronunciation was was wrong I am trying my best but I thank you all for joining today it's been a pleasure again for those who are interesting interested in the publication Empowering the diaspora and the digital age is available on the I-Diaspora website in collaboration with Wooter magazine if you have any other questions feel free to visit the website or to contact us through social media and until the next one it was great to have you all today I wish you all a great morning afternoon or evening depending on your time zone and thank you again who are fantastic guests for joining us today we really appreciate it having you joining us live today have a great day and thank you again bye bye thank you very much thank you thank you bye bye bye bye thank you