jaz o’hara & joshua coombes
In conversation with Mark Shayler.
Mark: Let’s get straight into it. Tell me a little about what each of you do.
Jaz: I run something called The Worldwide Tribe, which is an online community that is ever-changing, but it supports refugees, asylum seekers, people impacted by, or with lived experience of migration. We do that through storytelling mainly. We have a podcast, and I give talks in schools and universities, at corporate events, and for brands. We also do a lot on social media. Sometimes we make films, and also infographics, trying to really unpick some of the myths and negative rhetoric around migration. The exact topics we discuss reflect what’s happening currently and what's being covered in the media.
Mark: Do you see the shift in response from the more skeptical parts of the media? Do you see it shaped really quickly by the changes in migration? Situations like in Afghanistan, where you've got this sudden need, this essential need to get people here? Do you see that manifest really quickly?
Jaz: 100%. I've really learned to understand the ebbs and flows, and the patterns over the last six years. So what I would say about the last couple of months is that it's actually been quite incredible to, for the first time in about six years, see this huge increase in compassion, empathy and understanding in people. People are wanting to support refugees and asylum seekers in a way that we haven't really seen on that scale, ever. At the beginning of this work, in 2015, the refugee crisis was in the news a lot. It was really Europe focused, people arriving on the shores of Greece, as well as the awful pictures of Alan Kurdi washed up on the shore in Turkey.
That really increased empathy amongst Europeans for refugees, because it felt close to home. Whereas, in the last couple of months, it's been global. It's really been a global response of people seeing the incredible scenes of people trying to jump on planes in Kabul. What I’ve seen is a huge outpouring of love, support, and empathy. But I recognize that that is short lived and something else can come along in the news and really shift that pendulum quite quickly. As soon as the media starts spinning the rhetoric of people coming to the shores of the UK and us being full, we’ll go back to a more negative stance on migration.
Mark: We have a short half-life when it comes to memories of what built Britain. We're a nation built on immigration. We're a nation built on trade, change, and support. And we seem to forget that. Josh, can you tell us a bit about you and what you do?
Josh: I started doing what I was doing about six years ago too. And at the time, I was a hairdresser working in the salon and also a musician - I played music for a long time before I started cutting hair. I've always been a people person and my work has taken me from the salon listening to people, to listening to people who are experiencing homelessness and living on the street. This is an issue in every single city. And theres a life sized gap, I think, between people walking by and someone who is in this situation. I try my best to bridge that through storytelling. And I see the success when that's achieved, when you find the nuances in someone's life.
A lot of the work I do now, really, I think less about as homelessness as an issue. But more about the human condition and the way we all experience trauma and suffering in our own lives, and the behavioral patterns, and the negative consequences of those that are played out when something bad happens. A lot of the people that I see, I try to tell their stories through a haircut, through photography, through video, through our exhibitions, through a book now. I suppose, the more I grow into what is called Do Something For Nothing (because of the hashtag I started using when posting photos of people at the beginning), the more I kind of do this work, the more I realize that this is deep learning, in a very distracted world at the moment.
Sometimes you can spend a hell of a lot of time, not speaking to anyone each day, walking around on your phone, glued to it, or newspapers, or wherever you consume your news. When you start talking to people, I'm really interested in those interactions, those small interactions each day. My version of that is a haircut and listening to someone that gives me the privilege of being able to sit with them for an hour, a whole day, or a few days. Sometimes when I'm really on an adventure, I try to take this a bit further and walk the walk with someone and maybe try and get them more help. But I realised that before I started doing this work, I was a really empathetic person in my values, but I hadn't actually put into practice, as far as going out and listening to the community around me.
It isn't just about homelessness, it's different people doing things in their own way. And whether you have a million pounds to donate or a tenner, I think every now and again, we'll get a bit of time where we're confronted with someone who we can hold space for and listen to. I believe in that and I believe in trying to tell that story, especially now in a time when a lot of people forget that by just going out, walking around, and speaking to people, you can start to feel a bit more hopeful.
Mark: It's really interesting, Josh, because when we first met all those years ago, it was just haircuts. I always think that giving a haircut is one of the most intimate things you can do for somebody. If I'm ever feeling low, I just go and get my haircut and it doesn't matter what I have done, I feel better from someone tending to me. And that brings with it, this feeling of being cared for, which of course is not about the haircut. It's about the time and it's about the words.When you realized it wasn't about self-respect from looking different, but it was self-respect from being heard - how far into your journey did that come with you? And then, Jaz, the same with you. Your stories, the work that you do, it's the practical stuff, sure. But it's when you sit down and you look someone in their eye, and then you see a human. How far into your work did you realize that it was not about the mechanics, it was all about humanity?
Josh: I knew within the first few haircuts that the cut wasn’t the most important part. Some of the people that I'd see for the second time, straight away, would be more interested in talking to me about what had been going on with them, sharing their day-to-day, rather than asking for a haircut.
It was like those people I was meeting, they weren't after your money, they just really needed the time I was giving them while cutting their hair. I realised that quickly. But I think to be really honest, for the first couple of years, the story of “hairdresser to the homeless” became sort of the press angle, with me as the protagonist and this act of kindness. The phrase random acts of kindness is bandied about a lot. But it shouldn’t be random to be kind to someone. I think it’s an inherent part of being human. Me being “hairdresser for the homeless” has been an amazing way to get this message out there. It was a great way to get people to hear these stories and to think, but I started to try and transition away from that label after a while.
It's always going to be a strong image and brand, and it’s what leads with the book I’ve just written. But underneath all that I’m always trying to have this conversation, that we’ve got to have a deeper understanding of this. We've got to have a deeper understanding of the fact that these are humans, humans I’d see on a regular basis. It seems needless to say, but they’re just people. And this stigma surrounding homelessness is still, unfortunately, just so cemented in some people's minds. But it's just not like that. And yeah, I've sat next to someone while they’re injecting heroin into their arm. It's not easy to see. And that's not an everyday scenario. But underneath it, there's a kid, there's someone who hasn't been loved. There's someone who hasn't received the kind of love that we all need to flourish and grow, or the kind of support, or affirmations that we all need to succeed. So I try to find things that we can all relate to through storytelling. That's how I transitioned from just cutting hair. It's like finding those nuances of, not just the day-to-day, what happened to them, but the deeper stuff. Trying to relate to people through trauma or bad things that might happen that you can relate to and think, "Fuck, I felt like that and I needed people around me to look after me at that point."
Mark: Do you find that their words flow really easily, Josh? Does the proximity create trust in a faster, more accelerated way? And is it a real trust? Do you find that there's an intimacy that hairdressers have that feels almost anonymous, so people can tell you things that they wouldn't normally say?
Josh: Yes is the answer to that, for sure. I can't avoid the fact that the nature of a haircut is different from other interactions, in the sense that you've got to give your trust to the person who's behind you. You’ve got to relax into it. Yeah, there is a way that hairdressers create that trust. And then you have to give yourself up to that as a client. There's no ignoring that it’s an interesting part of the process. Sometimes yes, people really open up and it flows. I've learned that rather than try and fill all the awkward gaps or silence, just to sit with it. The beautiful thing about this is there's no expectation to do fill that gap. If someone doesn't want to talk, that's totally fine. We sit in silence and I'll cut their hair and that's still really nice. Maybe we'll start talking halfway through or sometimes people spill their heart straight away - like they were waiting for that moment, to talk to someone outside of their circle. It's like life, right? Some days I don't want to talk to people. So you catch someone on one day and they want to chat and other days not. I just take it as it comes and see what happens.
Mark: Oh, for certain. And then the same question to you, Jaz. At what point through what you do, did you realize it wasn't just the mechanics and the housekeeping, it was about humanity and self-respect?
Jaz: The reason why this all began for me was my youngest brother. I grew up as the eldest of four kids. We always had a full house, loads of people coming in and out, it was busy, and it was hectic. When my youngest brother was turning 18, my mum and dad had a real classic case of empty nest syndrome and were wondering what their house would look like now that none of their kids were home anymore. So they started the process of looking into adoption, fostering, and what their options were. That was how I first became aware of the situation for unaccompanied minors in Europe, because my mum and dad live in Kent. Through going through this process, it became clear that there were a lot of underage children arriving in the UK alone, doing these crazy routes overland. And that my new brother or sister - my mum and dad were very willing to have an older child, who was a teenager, a child that didn't speak English, a boy, some things that to other potential parents maybe are not as desirable. So it looked like when we would be matched with a child, it would probably be an unaccompanied refugee child.
That's when I first started recognizing the way that language was used in the media to describe the people that were living in Calais, the people that were trying to make it to the UK and how dehumanizing it was. That was the reason I made my first trip to Calais, to try and find out a little bit more. That was just before my first foster brother joined our family. It was that trip that kind of humanized things for me, because then I met people that were just like you or I, and people that I related to a lot, people that had made these incredible heroic journeys. I made friends basically, on that first trip. Then it was when my brother joined my family a few weeks later... Mez, my Eritrean brother. He's the first of four foster brothers that I have now from Eritrea, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Libya.
I realized that when we're using this terminology in our headlines, in the media, in the UK, illegal immigrants, migrants, we're actually talking about people like my little brother Mez, who is a hero, who'd done this incredible journey to try and find safety alone, leaving everything he knew behind him. He has been through so much at such a young age and he should very much be treated as a hero and nothing else. That really humanized it for me. And I think it still continues to, that I think about them - my brothers, and I really try to highlight those human stories to find a way to inspire others too Instead of thinking about refugee, asylum seeker, immigrant, they can actually replace those words or visuals with someone like Mez, and hear their real story.
Mark: You're right - any human handle we can give to a situation where there isn't naturally one, I think really helps. There's something really magical about the moment when you see through a problem into a human. I don't know how we begin to scale that. We'll come to that in a minute. But first, tell me how you two met. What kind of shindig, what kind of party, what kind of data net, what kind of mates house did you two get together at?
Josh: Well, we knew each other for a year and a half as friends. We met actually through Instagram. I was switched on to Jaz's work after I went on a trip to Athens with one of our mutual friends, Anna. I was working with some refugees who were living in Athens and I heard about Jaz's work through Anna. Once we connected and started speaking, we’d meet up periodically - every few months. Then we found out we both lived in the same neighbourhood in South East London, really close to eachother. So we started meeting up more regularly for coffee and some food. So we were mates for about 18 months. And then there was a point where sparks started to happen. I remember the first time that felt like a date. It was just after I got back from India. Before and during the trip, we had started talking more and more. We met up afterwards and it was a transition really from friendship to being in a relationship. So there wasn't a clear moment, as far as meeting for the first time, because we already knew each other. But it was after that time, which was around November 2019, where we got together.
Jaz: There were always a lot of parallels in our lives. So when we used to meet as friends, I really felt like Josh was the only person whose life kind of mirrored mine. The only person that really understood the kind of lifestyle that I was living. And both of us had had this really defining moment in around 2015, where things had changed. Where we'd gone from doing something a little bit more conventional, to what we’re doing now. I was working in London, in the fashion industry, Josh was working in a salon. And then things kind of shifted for us at about the same time. We've been on this similar journey, where we've tried to navigate how to amplify these voices, how to do something good. We'd found something that we really fucking believed in. But then we had to also struggle to find how to survive and keep it sustainable and continue to do so. So I think we both really kind of helped each other through that in the first year or so of friendship. I remember there were a couple of events where we were kind of within the same community. So we both spoke at a Lush event in Manchester, at their annual summit. We seemed to be working in the same circles, where Josh might be speaking about homelessness and I might be speaking about migration or the refugee crisis.
Josh: The truth is, I feel that because we already had that strong foundation, it all happened so fast when it did happen. We already had that friendship, compatibility, all those things you work through usually at the beginning of a relationship. So thats why everything happened to fast, in the most healthy way.
Mark: It's fascinating because normally what comes first is the kind of physical attraction, right? Because you don't know each other, but you see each other and then you kind of work out whether you like each other. With you two, you knew you liked each other, you knew you shared an ethical basis. How did you cope with this pent up sexual tension?
Jaz: I ask myself that. I'm like how did we not realize? I don't know how I didn't realize that we fancied each other.
Josh: I kind of know the answer to that, even though it doesn't really explain it. The reason why we kind of were able to block out that stuff, was because we spoke about everything in the world when we met up, but we never spoke about relationship stuff. For some reason that wasn't part of it. You never asked me whether I had a girlfriend, I never asked if you had a boyfriend. We sort of knew eachother was in relationships during that time, but for some reason we never properly discussed it. Until we were both out of those relationships, and started to realise the chemistry was there. Once that had flipped, there really was no going back. I think what also helped is, we were very much coffee and lunchtime people. We never met up and got drunk, we were friends who met up in the daytime, in the afternoon. We didn't meet at the pub in the evening. I mean, who knows what would have happened then?
Mark: Obviously when you become lovers, everything changes. Did you have to learn to work with each other differently? Was there a knock-on impact in the way that you work together?
Jaz: That is a really good question. I think it's ever fluid because I feel that Josh and I have always retained our own things. I very much am focused on The Worldwide Tribe. Josh focuses on Do Something For Nothing. We have our own thing going on. I wouldn't say that during the day we particularly work together. But we support each other in that we have a lot of the same challenges and our days look similar and the way that we make money is the same. We give talks, and every so often if I give a talk somewhere and I get an opportunity from Instagram, I can pass it on to Josh and say, "I've got the perfect person for your next lunch and learn or next month's guest lecturer," So I think that there is still space, actually, for us to work more closely together and to join forces. But we have very similar skills and talents, so it's not that we necessarily fill in where the other lacks. I would say that we're quite similar in many, many ways and we do something quite similar. Would you agree with that, Josh?
Josh: Yeah. I feel like you're right. We've retained the reason we became friends and we still support eachother in the same way. All of that stuff is just as true and as real as it was when we first met, in the sense of being able to understand each other's daily lives. But it's more like our hearts, as far as what we're trying to achieve and trying to navigate, keep things going, stay centred around the mission - that will continue to change. It’s not really like we’ve merged, it’s just that we work side by side. I do feel that at some point in the future, it would be really to work on a project for something together and put that energy together. We haven't actually done that as of yet, it's more been a few little overlaps here and there. But I feel like on the horizon, there'll be a time when that'll make sense.
Jaz: I agree. It hasn’t naturally happened yet, but I think it will. We did have one project that we actually talked about in the last Reasons to be Cheerful annual. During the height of Covid-19, we worked on a photography project together called People of the Pandemic. And I think that did highlight for me how we work very well together and that actually putting our heads together into something creative felt really, really good. That was with our housemate, Joe. We were kind of locked in the house, just the three of us. And we birthed that project. It felt really good because it grew and lots of photographers came on board, globally actually. We ended up winning a couple of awards. Joe works in advertising and is very creative, so he brought something new to the table there as well. I really enjoyed working on that together.
Mark: I know you worked in fashion, Jaz. That world seems so far away from what you do now. You work with people who need clothes to keep warm, versus buying clothes because of what they look like. Those two worlds just seem so disparate.
Jaz: I would actually interject and say that you'd be surprised that when you're doing a clothing distribution, even if you're bloody freezing and you live in a refugee camp, people still have taste, style, and preference over what they wanted to wear. My background is in fashion design, specifically. I worked for an ethical underwear brand called Pants to Poverty, we did a lot of work with communities, rural farming communities in India, switching over to organic cotton. We were very close with every part of the supply chain. It's a huge industry - the fashion and textile industry employs the most people in the world. And from using that vehicle to create impact and a way of expressing yourself, there is definitely a natural progression to what I'm doing now. It's kind of come full circle recently because we just did a collaboration with a London based brand called Gung Ho London. We designed a collection based on some really important issues within migration. Each print highlights some things that you need to know about migration. So for example, one of the prints is the 1-in-10 print. There's 10 faces on the print, all people that were on The Worldwide Tribe podcast, all people that are refugees or asylum seekers themselves, and one in 10 of them is highlighted. That represents the one in 10 people in the world will be displaced by 2050. The idea is to use fashion to start conversations, and to raise awareness, and to advocate for these important issues.
Mark: Yeah, it completely makes sense. And the more you were speaking, the more ridiculous I thought my question was because obviously, number one, you can look good and care. And number two, you can be in need and still want to care about how you look. Josh, what's your take on that?
Josh: Well for me, I kind of fell into hairdressing because music stopped and I didn’t know what else I was going to do. So I thought I like talking to people, so I guess I’ll be a hairdresser, how hard can it be? Actually it was pretty hard because of course, people come into a salon to sometimes pay 150 quid to get their hair done and want to leave feeling great. And also superficially, might not even want the connection bit I, they might just want to look good and pay me, then leave. But I liked it. I was happily working in a salon. I love my job because I worked a way around things, even if I couldn't technically do them because the truth is, I walked into a salon in my mid 20s. I didn’t have years of experience or training. I kind of blagged my way in. Before that, it was music and it was predominantly punk music. I was a kid who failed all his exams miserably, and got told by most adults in his life that he was failing and it would be detrimental to his whole life. People liked putting me in a certain box throughout my teenage years. And then there was a venue in Exeter called The Cavern. That was kind of picked a bunch of us up. I bought a guitar, and we joined some bands, and they put out our EP, and it just gave me absolute hope for punk as a musical expression. But there was an ethos that came with that. I think even with my work in the salon, I don't think I was ever necessarily tainted by what might be a superficial side of hairdressing. For me, it was always something else. It was always about the people. That was my favorite part of it. I think if I stuck around, I could have gotten to the more creative side of hairdressing. But I think I’m where I’m supposed to be now.
Mark: I love the idea of the music not working out in one way or another, and then you picking up something else and just going, "Well, I can do that." The self-confidence and creativity that comes with that is quite incredible actually. How has that equipped you for what you do now, that kind of do it yourself approach?
Josh: Yeah. Very much so. And honestly,, as liberal and punk as my friends were, they did all wonder what I was playing at when I said I was going to be a hairdresser. It was all meant with love, but there was a side of it where they were wondering what the fuck I was doing. And to be honest, it was intimidating - walking into a salon where everyone looks good, and asking them to train me. But I think it helped me out a lot, because it can also be intimidating to go up to someone on the streets who is clearly having a hard time. And I find that easier now. What scares me and makes me feel uncomfortable now is social dynamics where people are scanning each other, rather than just looking at eachother in a deeper way. I'm glad that I put myself out of my comfort zone then as I did, because it’s made me who I am today. I have nothing against the hairdressing industry, I have massive support for it infact, but I don’t think I could do that again. I really want to try and write more, and delve into the creative side of what I do.
Mark: How do you stay positive when you're surrounded by so much difficulty?
Jaz: Oh, I don't know. It does get to me. I think I've got better over the years at dealing with the emotional impact of this work. But this month has really shown me that actually, because it was kind of reminiscent of, right at the beginning when I first went to Calais… I always tell this story, but basically, I remember the first Christmas that I came home after like six months of being in Calais 90% of my time, and like popping back to my mum and dad's now and again for a shower. Being like deep in the situation in Calais as things were unfolding, and the camp was growing, and more and more volunteers were wanting to come. We were distributing physical stuff on the ground in a way that we haven't done for years now. It was hectic and it was a huge learning curve. I felt a lot of responsibility because we suddenly had this huge amount of people wanting to support the camp and this huge need for support in the camp. I felt like I was kind of acting as that bridge to kind of bring the two together. And it felt huge. I'd gone from working in fashion, not really knowing much about refugees or asylum seekers at all, to suddenly being deep into this issue. I quit my job very quickly, so I started living and breathing the crisis that was unfolding on our doorstep. Then it was also happening within my home because my little brother had arrived at our house. It was the only thing that I talked about, all the time. My world, my perspective, my view had been completely opened to a new side of everything. I never thought that I would hear these kinds of stories firsthand.
There were people from the Darfur region in Sudan, telling me about what happened to them and their families. The physical and emotional scars that they have to show for it. The situation that they were living in, in Europe, so close to home. The more I learned about it, the more shocking the whole thing became. Anyway, that Christmas I went home, I stopped for the first time in months. Suddenly it all kind of piled on top of me and I felt this intense almost grief, I guess. Christmas in my house was the same as it always had been. My family around the table, food, presents, traditional Christmas, but I had changed and I couldn't go back to that previous version of me. I couldn't unsee or unexperience those things I'd experienced that year. It was really emotional, I guess it was burnout really. And I guess it was burnout really. After that, it took me a couple of years to feel like I could go back into that environment.
I went in very open, initially. I think I've got better at radiating out positivity, but not allowing too much negativity to penetrate me. This month, to kind of take it up to now, I really recognized how far I have come in the last six years. Because everything happening in Afghanistan really saw a huge increase in our following, and our community, and our engagement. Suddenly we had thousands and thousands more people contacting us saying, "How can I help? What can I do?" As well as hundreds of messages from people in Afghanistan saying, "We need help, we need to get out."
Again, I felt this kind of overwhelm. But I felt much in a better place, emotionally and better equipped to be able to deal with it. I can let things wash over me now, like the negative, horrible comments, hate comments that we see online towards asylum seekers, that doesn't distract me anymore. I can kind of disassociate from that and just be like, "Right, I know what I'm doing here. I know what my path is and what my purpose is in this. And I'm going to continue to focus there," whereas things like that really used to get to me.
Mark: Do you find the same, Josh? Do you find that when you come back into, I'm going to say normal society, or back home, are you able to turn off from what you’ve experienced?
Josh: I went round to my mum's for a cuppa recently and I was talking to her about this actually. I feel that recently, after turning in the book, I’m actually able to take a day off. Up until then I was never really off, my mind would constantly be telling me I needed to be doing more. I experienced massive burnout recently and quite a deep bout of depression, really. You can be happy in a number of areas in your life, and unhappy in other areas. There was a part of me that was energetically spent. And I had to kind of honor that. I’ve realised recently that the work I do still happens, even when I switch off. I have such gratitude for wherever I am, being able to close the door to a room at the end of the day and have the privacy to think, reflect, and be able to wake up the next day and have, whatever it looks like, your morning ceremony. When I do talks now, I talk about the idea of home and what that means to us. I try to get people to flip it, to think how important those things are, and also imagine all the ugliest parts of yourself being played out outside, like theater, to the street. I try to urge people to remember that people experiencing homelessness are living their lives constantly outside, in front of you.
The times that I'm not my best self, when you have to have those moments where you sit back and go, "Fuck, why did I say that yesterday? I feel really bad that I said that." Maybe it's with someone you love, someone in your family. People experiencing homelessness have those days too, only they’re played out publicly. I can't help but feel an awareness of the privilege I have to be able to do that in private. But I've stopped letting it make me feel any guilt because those feelings are totally not functional to the work I do. You have to recognize it, but it’s not logical to let those feelings weigh you down because it doesn’t get you anywhere. It doesn’t help anyone. That kind of empathy doesn't mean shit because it's all in your own head. So I'm trying to hang up those feelings of guilt.
Mark: One of the things that popped out straight away in that, was this whole idea of living your life as an external performance, like an open-air theater. To most of us, home is somewhere you can shut the door and it's safe. Jaz, does that resonate with the work that you do at all?
Jaz: Yeah. This is a common theme for both of us. The concept of home. What does that mean? I often ask people in the podcast, what does home mean to you or what does it look like to you? I remember meeting a girl about my age in Calais, who hadn't looked in a mirror for 18 months and she had no idea what she looked like at this point. And she was like, "I don't know if I want to." That really resonated with me and stuck with me at the time, because it's one of those things that we so take for granted. I was away for like three nights a couple of months ago, camping, and I hadn't had a shower. I came home and you feel like a different version of yourself after you’ve showered. I was renewed, and refreshed, and rejuvenated in a way that you wouldn't necessarily associate just with the shower. It's a whole feeling.
Josh: It's really good to talk about this stuff too as well because it's never an absolute for me. I’m sat on the beach right now and it’s like - I believe in a better direction, I believe in hope, help, and support for the kind of people I see. I want them to be sat on a beach one day. So who am I, if I also don't lead by example, by also going, "Yeah, fuck. I'm going to allow myself this moment to dip my head in the sea, and get back here, and lay in the sun." One of my friends, Levain, just got a job in a beautiful cafe in Crystal Palace Park. It's the first time she's worked in a long time and her confidence is shot. I want to see a time where she's getting on a train to the seaside to spend her wages and, "Do you know what? I'm fucking going to the seaside for the weekend and I don't care what anyone says.” All we can do to really love ourselves in the way that we’d want for someone else. I want to try and live a life that I'd want someone else to have.
Mark: If you don't allow yourself to have those moments of humanness, and sensitivity, and love, just because somebody else you're working with doesn't have those, then you're not modeling, and you're not recharging, and you're not becoming you again. And that's the point, isn't it? You're where you are because of the people that you are. Just to wrap it up, what does the future hold for the two of you? How are you going to both continue what you do? Will you continue what you do? Is there too much guilt now for you to ever stop doing what you do? What does the future hold for you both individually, as well as together?
Jaz: In answer to your question about guilt, I very much recognize that guilt doesn't serve anyone or anything. So I’m also very much trying to let go of any guilt and following what feels good and feels right. Work-wise, for the future, for me, something exciting that I'm working on is the new season of the podcast, in which we'll be going on a journey and focusing on places between Syria to the UK, rather than each episode focusing on a person. So the next season is taking the journey overland and you can follow along that journey through the episodes. Another project that is in the works at the moment is rather than me giving these talks, I really recognize the importance of amplifying voices. So the beginnings of a speaking agency called Asylum Speakers is in the works at the moment. Finding opportunities for people to take these stories of adversity, these difficult things that they've been through and turn it into a revenue stream, an educational platform, a way of sharing and something positive. A way of sharing their own story in schools and universities. Keep your eyes peeled, because there's some cool things coming.
Mark: I love it. And Josh, what about you?
Josh: Well, at some point I’d like to go back to school and study. For me, my education experience is limited to stopping at GCSEs and I have such a desire to learn more. I suppose the first thing that springs to mind is maybe full circle kind of thing, linking back to the question you asked earlier, which is how do we transmit and expand this message to a collective, to a society? I think it starts with - we need leaders who are vulnerable and comfortable in their flaws, their feelings. It needs to be a part of our every day dialogue. In education, but also politically instead. We need people who show themselves to be vulnerable, to get rid of this phony idea of having to be strong like cement from the outside, when we know we all have our own shit. And we’ve got to help each other through it. Art is huge for me, I'm working on more art projects with my friend, Jamie, who's an incredible artist. That could be really cool, and writing more. Actually, whatever happens, whatever this looks like, I'm not going to be back in the salon because I think those days are over. I’m going to continue to find ways to keep doing what I'm doing and maybe more knowledge to back it up. I know that I can talk, and I know what I feel, but I think I need more vocabulary to be able to express it.
Mark: Do you think politics is beckoning either of you? I mean, what you do is political, period. But do you think organized politics is beckoning you?
Josh: Not directly, for me, no. But perhaps having more thoughtful events, finding ideas to share and common ground. I’m interested in that. And it might make us vote differently too. I like the idea of more forums, think tank events, self-organized things where we can bridge more gaps.
Jaz: Both Josh and I, we advocate policy change, we want policy change in our areas. I've worked a lot with Amnesty around family reunification policies and things like that. But I don't see either of us and our personalities necessarily lending themselves well to party politics. I think we're bottom up in our approach, basically.
Jaz:
Josh: