In this episode of Across Archives, host Desmond Asakitikpi speaks with Riziki Kalibanya, Founder and Executive Director of Women Stand Up and Care and Director of RIZIAGRAPHY.

Riziki discusses building a photography and storytelling business in Kakuma Refugee Camp while facing gender barriers, entrepreneurship, community leadership, and single motherhood. She also explains how ethical storytelling can protect dignity, challenge stigma, and connect refugee women’s experiences with advocacy and practical support.

Key Topics

• Building RIZIAGRAPHY in Kakuma• Leading Women Stand Up and Care• Gender barriers in photography• Refugee entrepreneurship and single motherhood• Consent, dignity, and trust in storytelling• Women’s leadership and economic empowerment

Resources and LinksFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/celine.kalibanya

IsraAID Videos:https://www.youtube.com/@israaidvideosThe Refugee Archive: https://therefugeearchive.org

About Across ArchivesAcross Archives is produced by The Refugee Archive. It highlights archives, oral histories, and storytelling projects that preserve the experiences of migrants, immigrants, internally displaced people, and refugees worldwide.

Together with our companion series, The Archive Speaks, we explore how archives can amplify refugee voices, build solidarity, and reshape how displacement is remembered.

🎧 Continue the journey on The Archive Speaks, featuring the real voices of displaced women and single mothers around the world.

In this episode of Across Archives, host Desmond Asakitikpi speaks with Weanne Estrada-Magbanua, Mental Health Specialist at ADRA International, about the psychological realities of displacement that statistics and intake forms often fail to capture.

Weanne discusses identity loss, prolonged uncertainty, the pressure to appear grateful, and why mental health must be treated as an essential part of humanitarian response—not something addressed only after immediate needs are met.

Key Topics

* Why mental health is essential during humanitarian emergencies

* How trauma affects memory, planning, and decision-making

* Identity loss after displacement and resettlement

* The emotional burden of waiting for legal status

* What standard intake forms fail to capture

* The pressure displaced people may feel to appear grateful

* Burnout and powerlessness among humanitarian workers

* Turning empathy and curiosity into meaningful action

Resources and LinksWise Women Unfiltered: The Unfiltered LetterInstagram: @shahartalksYouTube: Shahar Talks | Wise Women UnfilteredFacebook: @shahartalksTikTok: @shahartalksThe Refugee Archive:

https://therefugeearchive.org

About Across ArchivesAcross Archives is produced by The Refugee Archive. It highlights archives, oral histories, and storytelling projects that preserve the experiences of migrants, immigrants, internally displaced people, and refugees worldwide.

Together with our companion series, The Archive Speaks, we explore how archives can amplify refugee voices, build solidarity, and reshape how displacement is remembered.

🎧 Continue the journey on The Archive Speaks, featuring the real voices of displaced women and single mothers around the world.

In this episode of Across Archives, host Desmond Asakitikpi sits down with Shahar Boyayan, founder of Wise Women Unfiltered, a platform centered on identity, visibility, and the stories women carry after decades of being useful to everyone around them.

Born in Brazil, Shahar migrated to the United States more than two decades ago, an experience that reshaped her life and became the foundation of her work on reinvention and voice reclamation. In this conversation, she explores how storytelling functions as a personal archive, why invisibility affects midlife women, and what it takes to find your voice again after spending years living for everyone else.

Shahar speaks candidly about the experience of being overlooked, dismissed, and talked over—and why age does not erase knowledge, intelligence, or the ability to learn. She shares practical steps for reclaiming presence, from small acts of courage to recording personal stories. Her message is clear: “You matter, and you do not have to accept invisibility.”

Key Topics

* Migration, loss, and reinvention as lived experience

* Storytelling as a way people learn, remember, and connect across generations

* Personal archives and the everyday stories that carry lineage and memory

* The invisibility of midlife and aging women in society

* Finding your voice again after decades in caregiving and service roles

* Small acts of courage as pathways to presence and visibility

* The politics of visibility and why resistance comes when women reclaim space

Resources and LinksWise Women Unfiltered: The Unfiltered LetterInstagram: @shahartalksYouTube: Shahar Talks | Wise Women UnfilteredFacebook: @shahartalksTikTok: @shahartalksThe Refugee Archive:

https://therefugeearchive.org

About Across ArchivesAcross Archives brings together archivists, storytellers, researchers, artists, and memory workers to explore how personal and collective histories are preserved, shared, and carried forward.