On the ground in Lesbos.
While working at Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW), they sent a videographer to follow my humanitarian journey in Lesbos during the peak of the refugee crisis in Europe. We were a team of two - I was the on camera talent and the assistant producer/director. Together we produced this short video (In Arabic with English subtitles).
Producer/Videographer/Director: Issa Shaker
On camera & co-producer/ Director: Faten Bushehri
Bahraini volunteer travels to Lesbos to offer humanitarian support and translation skills on the ground, as many refugees arrive on the shores of the Greek island.
Online Show Host
I briefly produced and hosted an online talk show for Global Voices called “GV Face Google Hangout Series.” I chose the topic and the guest, and worked with a director to manage the controls from a distance.
On August 22 and 23, Beirut witnessed its largest protest in recent history, with 20,000 people gathering to tell the government that they stink. I talk to activist and fellow GV contributor Joey Ayoub about this. The biggest challenge is when my guest got disconnected and I had to fill in air time alone for over a minute.
Talking to Brazilian human rights and criminal lawyer Edgard Raoul who quit his job at a law firm in Sao Paulo and decided to join refugees on their dangerous journey from Turkey and through Europe. He wanted to experience what refugees fleeing to Europe were going through.
Youtube Channel
Earlier this year I really wanted to try something new and get back into production and filming, but in the era of COVID-19 I had to find a way to do that from my living room. So I decided to launch a temporary Youtube channel with my partner to talk about our experiences as an interracial couple. In this project, I developed the concept and created a specific style and brand that remains consistent in all the videos. I was the producer, editor, and social media manager.
We had to adjust our routine and life to adapt to this lockdown like everyone else, which does not have a definite end date, but we tried to have fun doing it. We want to share with you some tips and also a glimpse of our life in The Hague.
We both struggle to learn each other's language, and for one of us it is harder than the other. Josh learned five new words that he never knew, and Faten learned five new Dutch words. We play a pronunciation game, and we try to guess the meaning just based on gut feeling.
Podcasts
Some topics were meant to be a podcast episode. Topics when content was more important than the visual, and the issue needed a different kind of attention. That is why my partner and I developed these two podcasts as a departure from our regular Youtube content. My role was to manage audio recording, develop the concept and topic points, and edit the episode.
The murder of George Floyd has triggered the world to finally speak up to support black people in their fight against racism. In the Netherlands, racism has also found ways to reach black people and people of color, and while police brutality is not compared to that in the U.S., racism is still a problem here and, in some cases, it can be subtle and implicit and can come in the form of microaggressions. In this episode, we wanted to share our experiences to put a magnifying glass on the issue that many Dutch people think is non-existent in their country. We decided to record this episode in a podcast style over a black screen.
Racism and discrimination do not know borders. Last week we talked about our experiences in the Netherlands, but this time Faten brings in a guest friend to reflect on how they were once part of the problem in the Middle East and how the narrative and mindset have to change. They about anti-blackness and discrimination against migrants and expats in the region.