Un radio-documentaire des luttes des sans-papiers en France
Réalisé par Aaron Lakoff.


Ce documentaire d'une heure rassemble les sons, musiques et voix
provenants de divers mouvements de personnes sans-papiers à travers la France. Le président français Nicolas Sarkozy et son ministre de
l'immigration, Brice Hortefeux, ont fixé pour la fin de 2008 un objectif
de 25 000 expulsions du pays. La France a mis en branle une machine à
expulser, avec pour conséquence qu'il ne reste que quelques espaces de
liberté et de relative sécurité pour les 400 000
sans-papiers du pays. Des actions policières massives, qui visent à
arrêter et expulser le plus grand nombre de sans-papiers possible, ont
envahi des écoles, des foyers, des stations de métros et des lieux de
travail. Nous avons visité quelques uns de ces lieux, pour en ramener les
voix de ceux et celles qui résistent.

Musique par: Cecile Gerard, Gavroche, Keny Arkana, Petar the Wizard, Les Ogres de Barback.

Narration: Marie-Iris Legaré

Pour plus d'information sur les sans-papiers en France:
www.9emecollectif.net (le 9eme collectif des sans-papiers, Paris)
www.educationsansfrontieres.org (Réseau Education Sans Frontières, national)
www.contreimmigrationjettable.org (Unies contre une immigration jettable, national)

Track 4

Track 3

track 2

Track 1

A podcast about the Next City Vanguard Conference, hosted at Concordia University in Montreal from May 31-June 3, 2017.

https://nextcity.org/vanguard

Next City Vanguard Podcast

[This piece originally aired on CKUT radio on November 25, 2014]

On Monday, November 24, 2014, a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, decided not to criminally indict Darren Wilson, a police officer who shot and killed unarmed Black youth Michael Brown back in August. Protests and riots quickly errupted in Ferguson, a suburb of St-Louis, following the court’s decision, and also happened simultaneously in many cities across the US.

On Tuesday night in Montreal, there was a candlelight vigil and protest at the Roddick gates of McGill, organized by the Black Student Network.


To talk about the events, we were joined live now by Will Prosper, a community organizer with Montreal Nord Republik, and an anti-police brutality activist. Prosper has been involved in supporting the family of Fredy Villanueva, an unarmed Latino youth shot dead by the Montreal police in August 2009.

We also heard from Samanthea Samuels, co-president of the Black Student Network at McGill, as well as Kai Thomas, a CKUT producer and member of the Desta Black Youth Network.

Hosted by Aaron Lakoff and Anna Marchese of CKUT

Montreal’s Black Community Responds to Ferguson Protests

Originally aired on Making Contact (Jan 22/2013):
https://www.radioproject.org/2013/01/dam-shame-rivers-and-resistance/

As we look for a solution to global energy problems and a way out of the climate crisis- some are turning to dams and hydroelectric power as a source of “green” energy. But at what cost? Massive dams are being built and considered all over the world, despite mounting concern over their economic, environmental and human impacts. On this edition, we’ll take a closer look at the damage caused by hydropower projects, and we’ll visit a community trying to keep their culture and homeland free from the destructive influence of river dams.

See below for the script to Plan NORD.

Featuring:

Derrick Jensen, author; Jason Rainey, International Rivers executive director; Shanet Pilot, Pishu Pilot, Denise Jourdain and Elyse Vollant, Innu activists; Marie Louise Andre Mackenzie, Innu elder; Gary Sutherland, HydroQuebec spokesperson; Chris Scott, l’Alliance Romaine activist;

Making Contact

Making Contact - Dam Shame: Rivers and Resistance

This documentary originally aired on CBC's The Doc Project on April 3, 2018.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/docproject/as-asylum-seekers-show-up-on-their-doorstep-two-quebec-women-struggle-with-how-to-help-1.4595233

"We're on the famous Roxham Road," says Sue Heller from her 200-acre farm near Hemmingford, Quebec.

This quiet country lane became famous in 2017. It's the most-favoured site for asylum seekers to cross the US-Canada border. Last year, 19,000 people made the journey through New York State to Roxham Road.

Locals like Sue Heller want to help, even if they can only make a small difference.

"We want them to be greeted in a more welcoming way," says Frances Ravensbergen, who also lives nearby. "It's very small but it's part of wanting to make the people crossing know that, right from the very first step, there is support for them in Canada."

A potluck at Ravensbergen's house in December ended up with neighbours forming a new activist group, Bridges Not Borders.

The group has started to hold information meetings in Hemmingford, aimed at making more neighbours aware of the situation unfolding almost on their doorstep. And they make regular visits to the American side of the border, where the locals call out words of welcome to asylum seekers before the RCMP arrests those people for an illegal crossing.

"These are all just small things that we can do to try to improve the environment while we work at a more political level to try to make things better," says Ravensbergen.


But what would be the most helpful to those trying to cross? Zein Al Abdullah met with Heller and Ravensbergen to give them suggestions. She crossed the border at Roxham Road last year, after first arriving in the US, having fled her hometown of Aleppo, Syria. Al Abdullah felt worried that US President Donald Trump would deport all Syrian refugees back to Syria, as he had vowed to do.


"I was so scared," says Al Abdullah about the morning she entered Canada. "It would have been very important to have someone, or some message of comfort, saying it's the right place to cross. Because when I crossed, I didn't see anyone."


Ultimately, Frances Ravensbergen hopes the effort to welcome those crossing at Roxham Road will come to an end. She wants Canada to offer an official, legal route into the country for asylum seekers who are afraid to remain in the US. Currently the Safe Third Country Agreement between the two nations makes it impossible for people who have arrived first in the US to then enter Canada as a refugee.

In the meantime, she and her neighbours are at work on a banner to hang between two trees beside Roxham Road, offering words of welcome to the asylum seekers they can't greet in person.

"I recognize that it's extremely limited," she says of the banner's potential effect. "But it's what we can do."

CBC Radio: The Muffin People

Originally aired on NPR’s Only A Game on September 15, 2018
http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/09/14/fred-sasakamoose-blackhawks-hockey

This radio story details the life of Fred Saskamoose, an Indigenous residential school survivor, who played one season in the NHL for the Chicago Blackhawks in 1953.

“In 1940, Indian agents with the Canadian government came to the Ahtahkakoop Cree reservation in central Saskatchewan. Six-year-old Fred Sasakamoose and his 8-year-old brother, Frank, were forcefully taken from their parents and thrown into a truck…”

Only A Game

NPR's Only A Game - The Story Of Fred Sasakamoose, An Indigenous Hockey Trailblazer

Aaron Lakoff is a DJ, community organizer, and independent journalist who is attempting to map the constellations between reggae, soul music, and a world without bosses or borders.