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Sofiia Yakymenko is a Ukrainian currently living in Italy because of the war. She serves as Nonfiction Editor at Under the Madness Magazine, and she loves writing fiction, poetry, podcasting, and photography. Sofiia learned to read at five and has not stopped since. Her favorite genre is romantic nonfiction, and she enjoys reading books in different languages. Sofiia dreams of studying comparative literature at Harvard University. She owns a small dog who loves everybody. Sofiia likes seeing something special in usual things, which she then demonstrates in her artwork published in various magazines like Blue Marble Review. Her work appeared in the Ukrainian special issue (Spring 2023) of Under the Madness Magazine.
This interview is about Sofiia's podcast, "Over the Globe," which gives voice to teenagers from conflict zones. You are invited to listen to it using this link: https://linktr.ee/over.the.globe.
Could you tell readers about how your podcast came about?
Since June 2022, I have been a member of a youth-led organization called "Winds of Change," which aims to bring together youth from around the world to learn from each other, set common goals, and solve local and international problems. After a year of leadership training, its members (coming from Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Ukraine) decided to start their own projects to put their leadership skills into practice. Initially, I thought of creating several meetings, each featuring a different interviewer and a different speaker, for teenagers from war-torn zones living abroad or in their home countries to support each other and share their experiences. It soon became clear that this project would be challenging to create because of the unstable internet connection of both the interviewer and the guest, as well as the difficulty of arranging the meetings.
That is how the "Over the Globe" podcast was born. Being the project leader and having a stable internet connection, I became its host. With the podcast being open to everyone and not only for teenagers, it also gave me the opportunity to share the stories of teenagers from conflict zones with people all over the globe, raising their awareness of the matter.
What's involved in creating a podcast episode?
Each episode, whether it’s 12 minutes or an hour long, requires a lot of preparation, so I am lucky to have an awesome team who helps me create them. After finding a potentially interesting podcast guest, I message them and ask for an interview. If they agree, I send them a prepared list of questions to avoid putting them on the spot during the recording. On the recording date, I log into my online studio and record a conversation with the guest. The recordings can vary from 15 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on how talkative the person is. After we finish speaking, if everything goes well, the recording downloads to my computer, ready for me to edit. The episodes go out each Monday, so I usually edit them on Sunday morning. Each 15 minutes of audio takes about 30-40 minutes to edit, but it again depends on the speaker. After I finish editing the episode, I send a preview to the speaker and the team members who write the episode description for the show notes. When the description is ready, I set the episode to be published on Monday using a program that automatically publishes the recording on all chosen platforms on the set date.
Who have you interviewed to date?
I currently have 22 episodes recorded featuring an eighteen-year-old writer from Ukraine, the CEO of Peace by Chocolate, a girl who lived under occupation in the Bucha region, a Chilean refugee now based in Canada who lived in the Amazon jungle, an Afghan girl now living in Iran, a Myanmar refugee in Florida, and many more.
Would you describe most of your interviewees (and perhaps yourself) as teens in exile? Why or why not? Do you prefer another descriptor?
When you talk about teenagers from war-torn zones living in exile, the terminology they prefer can change depending on the countries they are from. When talking about Ukrainians now living abroad, like myself, I would recommend using "temporarily displaced teens" rather than "teens in exile." Exile suggests a state of complete non-belonging to the country of origin. Moreover, when you say "teen in exile," it implies that this person is not going to return. That is not what most Ukrainians who were forced to leave their country think. They hope to return as soon as it is safe, and they do not want to be deprived of this hope.
English is probably not the first language of most (or all) of your interviewees. What's it like conducting the interviews in English?
English is not the first language of all of my interviewees (or mine, of course). This fact makes it even more difficult to find someone who would agree to give an interview because of their insecurity regarding their English proficiency. Knowing that you would have to speak about quite a challenging topic and that your voice would be recorded is stressful for some. It also makes some people answer the questions somewhat briefly and even write the answers in advance to avoid making mistakes, sometimes making their speeches sound unnatural. Nevertheless, I am sure English is the best language for the podcast because it allows more people to give an interview and to listen to it.
What has surprised or pleased you the most about interviewing these individuals?
When interviewing teens who now live in war-torn countries, I noticed that many are very patriotic and optimistic. They talk about going to shelters and living under occupation but say they would never have wanted to leave their countries. They are sure that in the end, everything will be alright, that there will be peace and light again. Sometimes, it feels like they are much happier than those who left.
Tell us about one scene or incident, described by one of your interviewees, that has stuck in your mind.
In one of the early podcast episodes, I talked to my friend from Kherson, now living in Germany. He was forced to flee through temporarily occupied Crimea and Russia, and I remember him telling me about when they decided to leave occupied Kherson. He said this: "I was out with my friends, and an explosion happened about 500 meters away. We went there with our parents. There were a lot of dead bodies, but the Russians would not let us get closer. When we came back the next morning, the dead bodies from the previous day were gone, but we could see the dead body of a dog. It was sunny, there were no clouds, and the dead body of the dog. And then we decided to leave."
How do you come up with your interview questions? What's your strategy in the kinds of questions you ask? Can you share a few of your questions here with our readers?
I try to think of questions that would be interesting for the speakers to answer and for listeners to hear, and those that can involve a short or long answer depending on the speaker's wish. I always start by asking the guest to introduce themselves so they can share something about their background. The question in the middle of the episode usually refers to the specific story of the guest. If they are currently abroad, I ask questions like: "What was the first thing you found interesting/strange when you first came to the country you are in now?" or "What do you miss the most about the country you are from?" If they are living in their home countries, I might ask them to tell me about their education there or what were the biggest changes in their life after the start of the war. I like ending the episodes with questions like: "What are you going to do after the victory?" or "What advice do you want to give to teenagers in the same situation as you?"
Have your own feelings or thoughts, as a teen living in Italy, away from your native Ukraine, changed in any way as a result of making the podcast?
As I said, this podcast was created to support teenagers from conflict zones living abroad or in their countries. Eventually, when I started the podcast, it not only helped me to talk to my old friends in Ukraine and get to know new people, but it also became a great support for me. When I talk to someone who is in the same situation as me, I feel like I am not alone. I feel like there are many more of us, and that, sooner or later, we will all be back.
How do teens who live outside their native countries cope? What seems to be their strategy for life in another country? Or for life in a conflict zone?
There are different ways in which teenagers react to such situations. Those who fled tend to find groups of people from their countries who now live abroad, where possible, or integrate into the society they are living in and try to be similar to the teenagers surrounding them. Some hold onto hope to come back, while others let it go and break all connections with their native countries. Teenagers living in conflict zones try to volunteer and help as much as they can. Many Ukrainians who finish school during the war wish to stay in Ukraine to rebuild the country. People there try to be united to preserve what others are trying to ruin.
What's something about your daily life in Ukraine that you still miss?
There are many things I miss, but the one I miss the most is communicating with people without thinking about grammar and the words I choose. I miss conversations with people at the street market, on the bus, and in the parks. I miss the feeling of being part of something bigger, of being united with the people around me, the feeling that everyone around you is your family.
What would you most like other teens around the globe to understand about their peers living in exile or in conflict zones?
I think it is important to understand that the teenagers who come from war zones are the same as any other teens. They do not need special treatment. Often, these teenagers want to be seen as just anyone else, not to be constantly pointed out. They want their accomplishments and dreams to be recognized regardless of where they are from. They often want to fit in and be similar to their peers all over the world. So, if you are a teenager from the US, Canada, or any other country that is not experiencing hardships, I would like to ask you to be sensitive, but not to exaggerate. If you ever meet a person from a conflict zone, you could ask them about the situation in their country, but otherwise, talk to them as you would to any of your peers from your country. Believe me, it will make them feel much better than anything else.
