“Sometimes it can be very overwhelming, you really feel for the people and the suffering that they're going through.”

Unaisi Vuniwaqa has witnessed terrible suffering. As the Assistant Secretary-General for Safety and Security, she has worked as a UN peacekeeper in some of the world’s most dangerous places.

What does it take to stay calm in the crossfire?

Peacekeepers have one of the toughest roles in the United Nations. Serving in brutal conflicts, such as that in South Sudan, can mean drawing on all their reserves of courage and ingenuity.

In this episode, Unaisi Vuniwaqa reflects on what it takes to keep a cool head while in mortal danger and on maintaining the safety of UN staff and peacekeepers around the world.

:: Unaisi Vuniwaqa interviewed by Melissa Fleming

“When I meet with children, I just see that there's always that glimpse of hope in their eyes and that drive to make a future for themselves.”

Bo Viktor Nylund has always been drawn to complex, difficult places. As the Representative of UNICEF in Syria, he is a passionate advocate for the rights of children growing up in one of the world’s most thorny and protracted crises.

Children continue to bear the brunt of Syria’s decade-old conflict, with millions of childhoods shattered through destruction, displacement, and death. Meanwhile, thousands of children of Islamic State fighters, some as young as 12, are being held indefinitely in camps in the country’s north. In this episode, Bo Viktor Nylund reflects on their grim plight and his determination to do right by every Syrian child hoping for a better future through education.

“The situation of the children who have been affiliated with Islamic State is basically a time bomb in the making.”

:: Bo Viktor Nylund interviewed by Melissa Fleming

“Some days, I sometimes wish I hadn't been here before the 15th of August, because then I wouldn't have seen the hope and the promise and the potential.”

What is it like living and working in Afghanistan as a woman leader of a UN Agency? Mary-Ellen McGroarty witnessed the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in August 2021. As Head of the World Food Programme in the country, she has seen first hand the seismic shift in the economic, political and cultural landscape.

Now, over 50% of Afghans are threatened with hunger. People are unable to go out to work either because of the economic crisis or, in the case of millions of women, because of new restrictions on their freedom. In this episode, Mary-Ellen McGroarty reflects on the impact of the takeover, the scale of the ensuing humanitarian crisis, and what it’s like sitting face to face with the Taliban.

:: Mary-Ellen McGroarty interviewed by Melissa Fleming

How did a boy raised in a small village in Barbados become one of the top United Nations officials tackling climate change?

Selwin Hart (pictured on the right) takes us on his inspiring life journey -- from growing up in a home without electricity to being at the centre of global negotiations to tackle the climate emergency.

The first person in his family to attend university, Selwin talks about the transformative power of education. He also explains how determination and a sense of community have served as driving forces in his career.

“If we give up, it means that my people in Barbados, my neighbors in the Caribbean, my friends in the Pacific, my friends in Africa, my friends in the developing world, and even folks in rich countries, we would seal their fate… So I refuse to give up.”

:: Selwin Hart interviewed by Melissa Fleming

“How obscene it would be for a country…that still has poverty, that still has all these problems, to spend billions in nuclear weapons. What for?”

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has specialized in non-proliferation and disarmament issues for more than 35 years – ever since he began his career as a diplomat in his native Argentina, when the country's then military dictatorship announced that it had mastered uranium enrichment.

Rafael shares how a meeting in his twenties with atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima profoundly changed his perspective. He also explains benefits of nuclear technology as he prepares to launch Rays of Hope, an initiative to scale cancer treatment for women across Africa.

:: Rafael Mariano Grossi interviewed by Melissa Fleming

What is a day like in the life of the epidemiologist heading the global response to COVID-19? 

For the past 21 months, WHO COVID-19 Technical Lead Maria Van Kerkhove has been working around the clock with thousands of scientists to try to keep all of us safe.

In this personal and insightful episode, Maria shares her memories of the first moment she became aware of COVID-19 – before most of the world knew it existed – and then she takes us behind the scenes of WHO’s early steps to tackle the crisis. 

Maria also talks about what, throughout the entire pandemic, motivates her every day to get out of bed and care for others, at the expense of her family life.

“When I went to China in February 2020… he [my child] was really scared. So, he thought I wasn't coming home and I think everything changed for him. You know, it was this mysterious new virus. Everything was shutting down. People were scared, there was an ominous nature about it and he thought I wasn't coming home. So, for him, that was really scary,” she says.

:: Maria Van Kerkhove interviewed by Melissa Fleming

“I've seen horrible things. I've seen massacres. Human suffering. These are not easy sights to see. The best way I found to deal with that is just to be determined to fix it in some fashion.”

UN Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Coordinator for Yemen David Gressly has seen some of the worst of man's inhumanity to man during a career of more than 40 years in peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and development. In this episode, he talks with podcast host Melissa Fleming about what has driven him to devote his life to helping the most vulnerable in some of the most fragile places on earth.

With more than 20 million people in need of assistance and a seven-year ongoing war, Yemen is among the world's worst humanitarian crises. But it’s not just conflict that threatens the Yemeni people. As David explains, every three days someone is injured or even killed by landmines or unexploded ordnance. During this eye-opening conversation, David shares his concerns about the dire situation in Yemen and the likelihood of being able to sustain the humanitarian response in the year ahead. 

:: David Gressly interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"We're talking about children sometimes, about babies… We're talking about women at very vulnerable ages. We're also talking about men that desperately seek employment and find their hands into criminal gangs that would exploit them for sexual purposes to any other purposes."

Ilias Chatzis heads the team fighting human trafficking and migrant smuggling at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In this episode, he joins podcast host Melissa Fleming to talk about how a man who grew up on a Greek island came to have a burning sense of justice and a crime-fighting career of more than 25 years.

In this conversation, Ilias describes how reports about online abuse of children and sexual predation of women have surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and how criminals are always adapting to new technologies to exploit their victims.

:: Ilias Chatzis interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"We took around seven children back to the UNICEF compound here in Kabul… there was a little boy called Mudares [... Mudares] said 'when I go up high, I feel I can reach the stars and I want one from my mother.' It was a reminder for us all just to keep going for the children of Afghanistan -- because if Mudares can look to the stars, we can all look to the stars and do better.” 

Sam Mort, UNICEF’s Chief of Communications in Afghanistan, speaks to Melissa from Kabul shortly after the Taliban’s takeover. Sam, along with other UN colleagues, has remained in Afghanistan to help the country’s people as they face a worsening humanitarian situation. She tells stirring stories of loss, reunification and reaching to the stars for hope.

“I see a bravery in Afghanistan's girls and women that I haven't seen anywhere else, because the fears and the threats are real and they acknowledge it. And they move forward,” she says. 

:: Sam Mort interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"We know that whenever you have these sort of atrocity crimes that happened here [Bosnia and Herzegovina], they're often preceded by hate."

Ingrid Macdonald is the UN Resident Coordinator in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is tasked with spearheading the UN’s efforts to support development in a country still deeply scarred by ethnic divisions and the legacy of war and the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica. Ingrid, who was raised in a small New Zealand mining town, has a long record of working in humanitarian, development and human rights jobs around the world.

Since relocating to Sarajevo in early 2020, just as COVID-19 was taking hold across the world, Ingrid has been focused on finding ways to bring divided communities together as well as tackle hate speech and genocide denial, just 26 years after Bosnian Serb forces massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. In this episode, she talks about the challenges she faced in many of her roles and her vivid memories of trying to advocate for the vulnerable, including her time helping women in Afghanistan.

:: Ingrid Macdonald interviewed by Melissa Fleming