Prepare yourself for a gripping narrative that will take you from the conflict-stricken areas of South Sudan to the mud-walled houses of Kakuma refugee camp, and ultimately to the heart of Germany. Our guest, Okello Joseph, shares his riveting journey of survival, struggle, and success in today's episode. His story is a testament to human resilience and the fierce belief of his value as a human being and film maker.
Imagine leaving everything you know behind at the age of three. Not just being torn from your village and country but being sent away by your mother and not knowing your real name for years. Imagine that when you meet your mother again after many years, her only message to you is : "when I die, you will live like a dog". .
It takes unrelenting determination to drive through those obstacles to survive let alone thrive. Yet Okello Joseph, not only found the strength to endure but to ensure his creativity did so as well.
This is a true story of resilience that aspiring leaders in the wealthier countries could do well to emulate.
Prepare yourself for a gripping narrative that will take you from the conflict-stricken areas of South Sudan to the mud-walled houses of Kakuma refugee camp, and ultimately to the heart of Germany. Our guest, Okello Joseph, shares his riveting journey of survival, struggle, and success in today's episode. His story is a testament to human resilience and the fierce belief of his value as a human being and film maker.
Imagine leaving everything you know behind at the age of three. Not just being torn from your village and country but being sent away by your mother and not knowing your real name for years. Imagine that when you meet your mother again after many years, her only message to you is : "when I die, you will live like a dog". .
It takes unrelenting determination to drive through those obstacles to survive let alone thrive. Yet Okello Joseph, not only found the strength to endure but to ensure his creativity did so as well.
This is a true story of resilience that aspiring leaders in the wealthier countries could do well to emulate.
Welcome to another episode of Migrant Odyssey stories of and about migrants of all kinds People seeking a better life, people fleeing an unbearable one, all, I suspect, wishing they could fulfill themselves in their home countries. You know, the more research I do into this subject, the more people I meet, the more I realize that we need to focus on the impact of the traumas and just the sheer grind that refugees and migrants go through just to live a normal life, just to be valued human beings in a community they can call their own. As if the trauma of war and the endless treks to escape were not enough, many have to cope with the huge rifts that are created with family and communities, the anger, the helplessness of parents, of siblings and neighbors that can also boil into violence, wrench from your country, wrench from your family, just wrenched from your moorings. Then there's the daily battle just to live that ordinary, human, useful, valuable life, not just in camps but also in the new host countries. It's not as if the world refugee agencies are not doing a heroic job and they are. They really are, but the scale is so big that they have to deal with it on a logistical and organizational basis. Human beings inevitably have to be regulated into ciphers. Refugees, whether they cross the Mediterranean in terrifying conditions or are stuck for decades in camps in Africa, bangladesh or Jordan, have deep psychological wounds that need to be tended. And perhaps, while it's the job of the global agencies and countries to try and deal with refugees on an organizational basis, it is ours as individuals, as professionals and as communities to try and heal the wounds, and perhaps in so doing, we'll help heal our own wounds as well, something I certainly need to think about.
Stephen:Today's guest is Okelo Joseph. Like Deng Dak Malual in the first episode, Okello also comes from South Sudan, spent many years in Kakuma, the biggest refugee camp in Africa, and is now living in Germany. Okello, welcome to the podcast, and thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me. Okello:Well, Stephen, and thank you very much. Stephen: So, if you don't mind me asking, how did you - tell me something about your journey from Sudan, how did that happen and how did you end up in Kakuma?
Okello:I sort of can't really remember the whole of it, because one night left I was just but a kid and I was the time when I made my way during the civil war. So I still remember exactly in 1999 when the war broke out in some parts of Equatoria. I mean Jukdom in Bode Count was one of the affected regions and that's where my parents live. My mum is in really not a typical South Sudanese. She's an immigrant from Uganda. You know the people who are affected. During the struggles, her family moved to South Sudan and that's where she got married. But my dad is a typical South Sudanese.
Okello:So during the breakout of war, I still remember that fateful night woken up, I think, I was somewhere between three, three turning four, if I'm not mistaken. The best thing that's still stuck in my mind today was that we followed the river, and the river is still there till today. Then what happened after that? My mum gave me away and I ended up travelling to Kakuma, a refugee camp, with the help of my aunt. So we stayed in Lokhichogio for like another two or three weeks, you know, doing all those processing, writing and stuff, and then we came to Kakuma refugee camp In Kakuma. I might have stayed in Kakuma with a non-name for like another four years.
Okello:I realised that in 2004 when we were doing registration. Remember now you moving off from the junior part of the private school to, you know, to senior. That's like somewhere from class four going up and then during the registration, like, the name that I written in ration card is the name that is pretty literally different from the name that I use in the school that's when I came to learn that I had been registered as my aunts son or or rather I still don't know the good reason because by then my aunt had already gone back to South Sudan and I was left to live with some guys who are accompanied minors. That's how they called them. Like, especially if you live together as boys, you'll be given a companion minor. Yeah, we were related in that way, but I don't think they're relatives, we were just guys in the same community.
Stephen:You said your mum gave you a way. I assume your mum and dad, you were all escaping together down towards Kenya and then she gave you a way to your aunt to take so that she could take you further. Why did she do that?
Okello:Before that, my parents were already registered as refugees. They came to Kakuma in 1996, they went home to celebrate the 1999 Christmas and that's when war broke out. So I don't know what exactly happened between my mother and my father, but I do know that clearly they had a conflict, something my mum told me when I met her for the first time in 2010. I have a broken rib. Right now it's very visible. She told me it was a kick I received from my dad when I was a toddler. I don't know the disagreement they have, because she never told me everything clearly. I only stayed for three weeks with her. I asked her and she never told me anything. The only thing she told me was that when she passed away, I'm going to live like a dog, and right now growing up with all these senses and reflecting back to things I've been through. Remember I've lived for like 10 years in Kakuma refugee camp. I'm not even knowing I have parents. Literally no Like fending for myself. When I was nine I had my ration card. I live in my own mud-walled house that barely even had a roof, so when it's raining it's always a struggle, because the only things I used to care about is to make sure if I have food, it doesn't get wet and my books don't get destroyed by the rain. So I don't know and I can't make any assumptions as to why she sent me away. And I still remember, even when I met her in 2010,. I only stayed with her for three weeks and then she literally sent me away again. And when I made it back to the camp, three months later, she passed on.
Okello:I was already joining high school and that was when I came to learn that, the same same day my mom sent me away back to the camp early in the morning, that was the same day my father arrived in the village back in South Sudan. Chukrum is a small town. I can't really say it's a town, but it's okay. It's a town, I would say, because that's how it's qualified, because it has like administration and some sort of that. But I came to learn that. That was the same day my father came back. B ut she never wanted me to meet him. I still don't know why. I've never met this guy in my whole life. I don't know him. We've never talked, even when I was living in the camp.
Okello:Things went hard on me. I think there was a time I was kicked out of school, I think somewhere in 2008, 2009. So I got kicked out of school because I cannot raise 20 shillings to pay for my exam. And that was exactly the same time I got sick of jaundice. It is this like an anaemic disease and something; that illness literally was going to take me away. I saw myself going away. I see me losing my life like dying, but my football friends saved me. They're really nice guys. They took like a hell of a care. I stayed for like two months. I cannot walk, I can only lie down. Even when I sit down, I have to like use the wall as a support to sit properly. So that's how my days were for like almost two months.
Okello:And it's not that the words did not reach my mom. It did. I heard about it later, like it did, and she didn't give a shit about it. So I just struggled to find my own questions and when I met her, I asked her like what was the reason as to why? Okay, you say that I have an injury? What happened? What did I do wrong when I was just a kid? She didn't say anything. She only said that if I'm dead, you're going to leave as a dog.
Stephen:You said you asked her what had you done wrong and did you really sincerely believe that you could have done something wrong at the age of three?
Okello:I literally have no idea, literally.
Stephen:Yeah, it's awful, isn't it?
Okello:It's very awful whenever I think about it, yeah, and sometimes I hate myself myself for going back to get an answer, because now it's creating a lot of sadness in me.
Stephen:But you probably needed to do it, didn't you? You probably needed to at least answer those questions in order to put them at rest. Yeah, probably.
Okello:But now the problem is well, where am I going to get the answers? That's one hell of a question as well. My mom is dead. She's been dead for the last 5 years now. Yeah, I don't - I can't talk to my dad. Even when my mom passed away, like I literally even don't know how she died, what exactly happened, how she was buried, I only went, and I only went, to see her grave in 2012 For a couple of days, and then I came back.
Stephen:Yeah, you probably won't get the answers there, but at least you have one answer, which is that you won't die as a dog. You're growing and developing every day, and and her prophecy will not come true.
Okello:Yeah, for sure, for sure. I know I'm Trying as much as I can to build friends around, but of course, all the struggles and everything I went through while living as a refugee in the camp - All right, it's real a lot of things that I want to put - I want to put it the back of my mind. So when I get back to the school, I thought I wasn't gonna, I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to let it go. Just isn't like that.
Okello:So the trick I used was, you know, working hard, and I found myself leading the whole school all the way from from class seven. I mean, I was just, I was just, that's that young kid in the class, like the smallest, like the youngest person in the class, and I was studying with people, I mean couple of them. You have family and stuff, but I ended up like being on the top, on top of everyone and taking school to places and stuff. So that's that's how I survive. All the way to my KCPE, my Kenya Certificate for Primary, Education. I think I was the, the third or the fourth best student in the camp,if I'm not mistaken.
Stephen:So just to get it clear for everybody. So you finish after what? What class did you finish? Did you finish school?
Okello:I finished class 8. Yeah, I finished primary school and then I went to high school and I finished at my high school. But then now after high school, things were a little bit tough. Yeah, because we, you know, we don't. We don't have opportunities. That's just like any other person. Most of the time lots of people just finish high school and that's there's nothing they can do. So they go for like vocational trainings or they go for like teachers training and they then they end up becoming teachers or work as a medical assistant or just doing at the job, like I even have friends who are working as security, some some friends who are working as gatemans and and so and so.
Okello:So I, for me, I took, like I took like 10 month media training with FilmAid International. Because even in high school I can tell you, like everybody knew I was going to be a journalist. I used to do a lot of sport analysis in the school with, within within the, within the school, within the school journalism team and stuff. Trust me we were, just nice and we were best loved by everyone. So everybody knew I was going to end up as a journalist, but I didn't because straight after that. I wanted to study anthropology . It's still in me till today. So after high school there was nothing else we can do, so all I did was enrolled into 10 month media training with FilmAid and then I Graduated out of there as a, as a editor and stuff and, you know a Writer and photographer. So I was pretty much good with taking pictures and writings, and then Later I got employed by FilmAid.
Stephen:So what? What is sorry? What is what FilmAid? Tell me something about that.
Okello:FilmAid international, is it's, it's a, it's a media organization, that's that's it. Has it the headquarters based in New York, but then it has, it has like country and sub offices, the, the, the, the regional offices based in Nairobi, and then they can like, they do have, they do have like offices within the camps. There's one in Kakuma Refugee Camp; there's one in the dark(?), it's widespread in across most of the most of the sites of the world.
Stephen:So once you'd, you'd finished that, that diploma there, that qualification, and qualified as a, as a filmmaker. What happened after that? Because you're now I mean we don't want to jump too far, but you, you're now doing work, working with the World Economic Forum, as a videographer Is that right making documentaries. So fill us in. How did you get, how did you get from Kakuma to the World Economic Forum and, of course, where you are now in Freiburg?
Okello:I met I met one of the foreign video team in 2019 back in the camp, but they were present in the camera getting to win it in. But I didn't really. I didn't really get to meet them. I was. I was busy working on the refugee stories and I was also doing. I Was also doing a lot of photo series for the, for the FilmAi d international, and by then my contract had already, you know, a change into a complex one shoot. So I wasn't only the editing photographer for the refugee magazine, I was right, I was also working as a communication trainer now by then. So they came to the camp retrain filmmakers that are in the camp already and then they hand, then they hand out their guidance to the guys to go and film stories within the camp and they're always there to support it as well. So they did the same thing.
Okello:when I come, when they came in 2019, and that's when I met them now because I was just present in office. I wasn't doing a lot of things, but I was going in just, you know, to take care of the other guys and stuff. I was already. I was already doing documentaries by then because I wrote in 207, no in 2017. I wrote the "Welcome to Kakuma documentary, which is one of the biggest documentary it's been used to to educate refugees on step-by-step registrations from their arrival to the point where they get resettled in the community and things they go through. So it's like an explanatory, like step-by-step explanation. Yeah, What you expect, when you came in as a new refugee, until that time you were totally settled within the camp to become an independent person and when I met them, like I had, I had is like One of the exercises we were doing were pitching stories.
Okello:I see it, I did pitch and I think mine was really nice and also they was , there was training you know training us around on how to use the cameras. I was already familiar with the cameras, so we were in the field and I was doing a lot of shooting and then I had like an opportunity to like shoot like a side story in between their filming as well and the side stories I did was on projec called "I am the Code a I am called code that I am still a member of even today. So I did that, I finished it and then they came. Now they left and you know, because I think that was the first thing, I got my second biggest payment by then. Who's that, like I still remember, within those three days, no, the one week we filmed, I was paid like 15k and that was really and that was like twice my normal salary like my normal salary is just 8,500, it's like 85 dollars per month.
Stephen:So that 8500 is 8500 Kenyan shillings,Is that right? Yes, yeah, just to get straight for for for all our European and other - and American audiences. So it's Kenyan shillings.
Okello:It's Kenyan shillings, yes, of course. So when they came back and they edited I think the one minute story is that you don't, I'm the code really, you know, caught a lot of attention, like you got, it got to one extent where it was going to be screened at the Advertising billboard at the what do you call the four times square At NASDAQ in the in New York. You know that big yeah. So I was super crazy, like for the first time, like An African story, literally made by an African, was going to run there. I still remember was 2 am At night. I've had like spent the whole day with Johnny, he was the video producer, so he's my good friend. So he was like look, man, this story is growing, like your story is getting a lot of attention now with we're streaming it here and then these guys are getting in. So it was stream like in that advertisement board for the first time. And I still remember, you know, just staying awake until 2 am, eagerly, waiting to see how my work is gonna go, because they have given me like Codes to, to, to daily into the, into whoever was there, and I can see things screened. Yeah, and, and you know I was published everywhere, got attention. And then I am the code started growing still big. It's growing right now and I mean it's just been a pleasure for me doing that stories and then witnessing the trends happening until today.
Okello:So after that, they invited me to come to Davos. So I have like three different Documentaries that I teach with them and all these were going to be screened In Davos 2020. So I came pretty much early, spent one week in Geneva in in winter. It's really cold, I'm not gonna lie. It was nice to have such, such such an experience and, yeah, I was just really, it was just really amazing. So I went to Davos and.
Okello:Then I was part of the part of the team that is shooting the final film for the whole event. Remember, they always have like one final film for the whole event. That is screen at the closing plenary. And the biggest, the biggest, the biggest interview I ever did that time was the High Commission of refugees in the interview Filippo Grandi yeah, so it was organizing it up and down and that was the first time also, you know, went to, went to the headquarters. Because I was working at the forum at the headquarters in Geneva for like a week and then we went to Davos.
Okello:So I had to go there double check with the social media team. So while I was in Davos I was also doing contents for their social media teams as well and stuff. So after After the whole event, I just I just got back home. That's how I got like in contact, in close with these guys. And when I was home was when I got like when things started happening. Like I started my registration to, to, to, to ADMI and in the first place they asked. They were like no, they cannot take me in, I have to do a certificate course, you know, to be certified, to continue learning. You know, admi is not just any other school. It's one of the best women's schools in Kenya
Stephen:And that is the African Digital Media Institute - is that correct? (Okello) Exactly And where's that based? Based in Nairobi, in Nairobi, okay.
Okello:Yeah. So they wanted me to do the certificate course and then I checked on the things they wanted me to study the certificate and I was like I think I've done this one before and I send them now. Now, when they, when they receive my Certificate from FilmAid International, they were like no, no, no, this guy doesn't deserve to do in a certificate course. So I went directly Join, studied directly from my semester one and that's that's,
Stephen:o you did that in, you did that in 2020, to 2022 , so you did a two-year diploma, which is great, yeah, and then, yeah, I should, yeah, how did you end up in? In Freiburg?
Okello:After I was home in 2020 and I had like a profiling case. I had gone field force before and then I still remember this lady, just you know, telling me to get out of the office because I don't have any resettlement case. It wasn't really good, a good thing to deal with. So I just went home. I was silent. Then I received a phone call out of nowhere. I was still in Nairobi. We haven't even gone home leaving Davos. Then I was like no, I'm not in Kakuma, I'm still in Nairobi. Then she was like are you, you know, in a good position to speak. I'm like, yes, I Still remember, while just walking down the streets I was, I told one of my friends was like no way, I need to take a call from UNHCR.
Okello:So I sat down. And that's how I ended up getting a profiling case. And then it slowed down and applied for who's Highest leader and I got accepted for that. But then I didn't know if I, if I have an active recital men case. Remember I've done a lot of interviews here and there. I'm done profiling it and then now they collide it up there. But I did really want it to, I would did really want it to go to Canada. I didn't have any in tention of coming to Germany yet, but then now you can't decide, because it's always a decision made by the policies.
Stephen:Let me just ask a stupid question, if I may. So basically, unhcr then Decides does it? Is this how it works? Unhcr decides by the camp. You know who's qualified for resettlement in another country, who isn't. She first told you that, was told you is this right. First told you know You're not qualified, and then she said you are qualified and this is where you're going Germany. Is that what happened in a nutshell?
Okello:Oh, I'm not completely sure it happens that way, but most of the time it's it's the, you know, the third country that is, that submitted the proposal to take in refugees that always puts the criterias up from. So it's like, okay, we need profiles that looks like this, like this and this.
Stephen:So basically, germany set the criteria for qualifications, you fitted them in. You then were flown out to To Germany, correct?
Okello:I was. I was kicked out of the camp I, the camp they brought me into Last year on 18th of March like I went homeless, survived out for like a week. It was a hell of a struggle, one of the darkest times I ever I ever faced in my life.
Stephen:Um, why were you kicked out of the camp when you arrived (in Germany)?
Okello:So basically where we lived in, there used to be two buildings and this is the place where they put refugees in it. So there's one building where they put some asylum whose cases are positive, so they have to stay in one of those buildings for like the next two years before they get, before they are located at place where they're going to live in. And then one building was for people who only come there to have their papers processed, and then they're sent to different subcommittees now the smaller ones or directly to their To-to-to, but I would say they're mostly, mostly, just sent, taking directly to the places where they're going to live in. And Then I ended up becoming the only the oldest guy who was to stay there, because every two weeks new people come in, another one goes, other people come in, some other people go, you know. And then I still remember like getting oh, like three, the three Evacuation letters, so iI was told to leave, to leave. And then another one came in I was supposed to go, to be transferred to Bötzingen nd then I send them in an email, like I Also went on my own all the way Bötzingen to see where exactly I was gonna go to. I didn't know. You know you just have a letter, you're gonna go to Bötzingen into this place. I was good, I was gonna go to Bötzingen and go all the way to the RatHaus and then they decide where to put me from there. Yeah, I didn't know that, and then that didn't happen and then on the morning of , on the morning of the 18th of March it was on a Friday so they started, like you know, moving people.
Okello:They already have the names of everyone in the paper that that specify the rooms they are going to stay in in the other, in the other building. So when they start, you know, they come to your room, knock on your door, you get the paper, so you know which room you're gonna go to and stuff. then in those room you know it's you you are stuck like three people in one room, like there's all room that is barely even enough for one person. Yeah, um, my name was not there in that, in that list, so I didn't have nowhere to go. The only thing I could be told is just get your things out. We need to put in new beds, new beddings, new food, new stuff and everything, because they were preparing that for the Ukrainian refugees.
Okello:Well, who are affected from - you know, from the Russian war in ukraine, yeah, yeah, yeah, um yeah, I saw I was like so where am I gonna go? I still, I remember asking the security's and the guy told me like no, but go talk to the social worker. So they used to be a social worker. I went and I was like when like where am I gonna go?
Okello:which one is my room? She's like she don't know, she doesn't, she doesn't have my name on her papers and she sent to Rathaus (city hall) . So I went to the Rathaus which was about five to ten minutes walk from there.
Stephen:The Rathaus is actually the the sort of official mayor mayors office isn't, it? really the town hall. Yeah, they town hall. Yeah, quite right.
Okello:Yeah, so I went to the town hall and then these guys told me like they can't help me, and I came back. So what am I going to do? The only thing I was told is to get out my things Because there wasn't no time for them. I'm not really good with the arguments and stuff, because I don't really like them, because sometimes I just really just hate arguments based on how I grew up, because most of the time when things don't really sit well at home and somebody's talking a lot of shit and stuff, I get out and just go stay somewhere different until everything is calm. Yeah, so I start taking my things slowly by, slowly, and I put them outside, still have pictures of them, and then I went back again to tell them OK, you guys now tell me the solution. Remember, I don't know no one here in Germany. I don't even have friends, and the only thing I was told is no, our time of work is over.
Okello:After they were all gone now one of the security guys he's an Arabian, I think he's from Iraq he came and talked to some Somali guys on the ground floor. He told him that he asked them to give me a room just for the day and for the weekends. And then the guys I speak Arabic, not like the special or the classic one, I speak the local Arabic, but you speak to me in the special Arabic. I still hear lots of things you're going to tell me and stuff. And then one of these guys say, told me straight to the face, like how do you expect us to live with a black man? That thing struck me in the mind and I just went silent and looked at these guys. And then one of them one of them actually know me, like he plays football as well, so he used to see me going out. So there was a day full. We went to get all the way the pitch. We just went and sat there and then we came back.
Okello:So it's like he came and calmed down the rest of the guys. So they gave me a place just to put my things and if I can spend the night there, so I spend that one night and then the next, like even that wasn't even enough, well, , because I was with them and these guys could really smoke, like that's. I mean, that's the nature and that smoking thing it's not. I don't smoke Like it really gets bad on me. I still remember the only safe place I had and I still attest to that thing today.
Okello:But that was the only peaceful place I had in my life, but at that time it's in the bathroom. So I went to the bathroom, I closed it and it was really, really peaceful no smoke, no, not a lot of noises, and I sat there until 4 am in the morning. That was from midnight all the way to 4 am in the morning, the time these guys had already said prayer and they were going to sleep. So I just came and I slept on the table. I slept on the table, man, wake up in the morning. So what I did after that was I took the last train that evening. I took the last train to Freiburg.
Okello:That was the next day and I walked around Freiburg until 5 am in the morning and then I only had like three euros, so food was a big problem. So the following week I w ent to the the Rathaus and these guys didn't know what exactly to do so they took me to an asylum home and it was so crazy Because they were talking to people and asking them to put me in the room and the guys were literally like they took me to three different places within that same day, like the guy who was taking me there and the doors were just shut right in front of me and that's how I ended up living in a storage room. It was infested with cockroaches and stuff and I really don't want to talk about lots of things that happened in that building or struggles I went through there Because it was just eating my mind away.
Stephen:Okello, didn't the German government? Doesn't it provide any sort of financial support?
Okello:They do, but by then because I was taken out of the camp. So the only excuse I got later was I was told, like they don't know my residential address already, that they don't know where I went to next. That's what I got from Diakoni when I was sent there later.
Stephen:So they were basically saying, just to clarify for our listeners, they were basically saying okay, we're throwing you out of here, we don't know where we're going to put you. You left not knowing where you were going to go, and then they said we couldn't pay you because we didn't know where you were. That was the sort of chicken and egg, wasn't it? Really that was it.
Okello:But the room before me it's just a storage room when I have to move some mattresses. I found a bed that was there and then I fixed it and I just dropped it there and gosh, that was the dirtiest mattress I've ever slept on in my whole life.
Stephen:When you say it's an asylum home. Is that asylum, as in a refugee, asylum seeker, or what kind of home was that?
Okello:All the guys for that are like asylum seekers, but then with a certified refugee status now, and so I lived there, because the house itself, even the door, doesn't even have a lock on the sides. On the right-hand side there's a toilet and on the other one there's a toilet. It's been used by 18 other people, so it's on this side of the house that's literally not supposed to be used. So I lived on that side. The first day it was really stinky. The second day it did, but on the third day I got used to it and I lived there for another almost seven months. And the funniest thing is, when I wrote the global shapers community show, for the theWorld Economic Forum when they were having this summit happening. I wrote the coverage for the whole summit Because I wrote the idea and sent it and then it was loved. It was one of the best ideas that came around by then. So I have to sit down and work on the script. So I was doing a five-day script back-to-back. So most of the time when I came to school I go to the library and I spend my whole day there writing for like a month, when I do have a call with the show caller and the person who was doing the research and gathering most of the information to give me so that I know the next script that I'm creating.
Okello:I used to - where we're living, It's like the ground floor, there's a first floor and there's a second floor. We have guys living down there and then I was on the first floor so we have access to a place, part of the roof, but it's flat so it's really nice. I used to take my chair and that's where I did all my calls because it was really awful to do them in the house You never know, a ny time, there's always a cockroach passing by on the wall. They're just everywhere. So I did all my calls on the - on that rooftop. Everything I did writings and stuff so I did them there and nobody knew that. Till today, none of them knew that.
Stephen:Yeah. Okello, we're going to have to start winding up, but I just want to make sure. I want to try and get it to the present and where you now see yourself or want to go. You're now living in this place in Freiburg. You're about to get thrown out of there. Are you earning money at the moment? Are you getting regular gigs with the World Economic Forum? Are you doing other things? Tell us something about that, please.
Okello:I am a member of the World Economic Forum external video team so mostly when they have projects I work on, I can go there physically when I'm needed. I do editorials from home whenever I have any to write on. So those are some of the projects that help me to get you know, to get some money for survival and doing my personal things. Plus, of course, I also still do some private projects, personal ones, like recently I did one for the Climate Activist Network, like the international one, so I do provide contents for all the climate activists across the whole world. They don't have a video person, so I do that for them and I also just do some. So I went back and registered as a freelancer and, yeah, I've been doing a couple of gigs for other people as well. (Stephen): and these are paying gigs, are they?
Okello:They are paying gigs, yes, of course, but you know they are not really very present more often, so it takes a while to get one, which is something I'm really happy about and privileged to be in that position of being able to do that. But then inside here it's really tough, remember? You know, as a refugee here, most of the time the only jobs available are you go work in a hotel or work in in a shop or you work in a supermarket. You know all those things and so I'm always like why did I have to go to school study how to become a filmmaker and then end up working as a waiter? You know hotel, or work somewhere in a supermarket and stuff? You know I'm a passionate filmmaker. I love telling people stories. I've done a lot of documentaries. So it's always privileged to be able to find some of these projects here and there, because at least there is one or two people outside there who really look at me as a human and value my skills.
Stephen:Okello, if people want to use you and to employ you, to use your skills as a filmmaker and as a videographer, where can they get hold of you?
Okello:The best place to get hold of me is through my LlinkedIn: so it's Okello Joseph. My Instagram address is Okello Sejo. It's OKello O-K-E-L-L-O. Underscore Sejo S-E-J-O. Yep. Same. The same in my Twitter, the same in my Facebook. That's almost all my social media, apart from LinkedIn, because LinkedIn is the only thing that is holding my professional names.
Stephen:Thank you for sharing this very much. We will, I'm sure, talk again, but thank you and I certainly feel for you. I know I have some idea of what you're going through in Germany. Some idea, not all the idea, but some idea.
Okello:Yeah,All right, Stephen. Thanks a lot. It's just life.
Stephen:My guest today was Okello Joseph. This has been Migrant Odyssey. I'm Stephen Barden.