Voices from the margins exist and must be heard

Interview with Selam Tesfai and Ariman Scriba, hosts of the Video Podcast My Zone

My Zone is a video podcast by Voice Over Foundation, produced in collaboration with Blackcoffee Podcast and MUN Magazine. My Zone aims to change the narrative of the outskirts, particularly San Siro and Quarto Oggiaro, where the hosts, activists Ariman Scriba and Selam Tesfai, are from. The podcast is directed by podcaster and director Ariam Tekle.

The idea of creating a video podcast about the outskirts was born in June 2023, after the killing of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk by French law enforcement in Nanterre, a banlieue northwest of Paris. The need for a change in the narrative about the outskirts of big cities became evident. On one hand, the image given of metropolises is often distorted and glamorized, while on the other hand, these areas are discussed only negatively when a newsworthy incident occurs. To redefine these spaces as generators of culture, it is necessary for those who have grown up and live in these marginalized areas to speak out.

My Zone can be watched on Voice Over's YouTube channel and listened to on Blackcoffee Podcast's Spotify channel.

Q: Hello Selam, hello Imen, could you introduce yourselves and the realities you are part of?

Iman: I am Imen, founder and editor of MUN Magazine, an editorial project born with the idea of building a community to express and share ideas and perspectives in Italy, often erased and distorted. Mainstream newspapers frequently rewrite history, and we hope to tell what is happening in the world without filters and manipulations. Like Selam, I was born in Milan, grew up in Quarto Oggiaro, but now live in another neighborhood close to my original one, to which I am very attached: I keep all the memories of my little brother, his music, and his art there.

Selam: I am Selam Tesfai, an activist. I was born and raised in west Milan, from which I hope never to move. I am part of Cantiere, a metropolitan political laboratory, and Spazio di Mutuo Soccorso, a project born from the collaboration between Cantiere and the San Siro Residents Committee, a space of struggle and resistance for housing rights but also a space to practice an alternative possible world. 

Both Imen and I are critical of the city of Milan. We are both children of parents from other countries. We have experienced strong racialization, processes where your life and destiny are not a result of free will or meritocracy. If you are born and raised in public housing, on one hand, you want to leave, but at the same time, you feel destined to stay because the prospects are few, and few will believe in you because you are associated with a condition of social discomfort.

Q: What issues did you address in the video podcast?

Iman: The themes we selected, Selam, Ariam, and I, revolve around hip hop, housing rights, and mental health. A theme we might have explored more deeply is racial profiling. We tried to provide snippets and inputs without pretending to be exhaustive: we know it's impossible. Racial profiling is a central theme in Quarto Oggiaro concerning its history in the '90s, early 2000s, and today in San Siro daily. There are always patrols, checkpoints, and helicopters flying overhead. This limits people's movement within and outside their neighborhoods. Our movements can jeopardize our freedom because we risk being put in a CPR without having committed any crime.

Q: Why did you decide to accompany the audio recording with video?

Iman: In researching before starting My Zone, we realized how many podcasts featured only men at the table talking for hours, and we weren't okay with that. We decided to propose an alternative. Moreover, we wanted to show images of our neighborhoods: we were born and raised there, so being able to show our areas was crucial for us.

Selam: I really like podcasts; I enjoy listening to them, and I also like video podcasts, especially for a generation like ours that has progressively abandoned television. I liked the idea of having background voices while doing other things. I also like the idea that people can cultivate their reflections while listening to us and extend the conversation about music, housing rights, and mental health to themselves. 

I would like to hear other voices too, because the podcast tool is very good for this kind of thing, as explored by many Italian kids of foreign origin who have started open conversations without a specific theme but finding themselves discussing around a table.

Q: Who were you targeting while recording this podcast?

Iman: I would like to reach both the girl who is ashamed of her neighborhood and doesn't mention where she's from at school, who could finally have the chance to hear a story close to hers, and institutions or people who know nothing about my area. These are two completely different targets, but I believe both could benefit from this project.

Selam: I hope that people who have never looked at the outskirts from our perspective, that of racialized young women who grew up in the periphery and developed a reflection on what they have seen and experienced, will listen to this podcast. I'm not interested in representing all racialized people: it would be crazy to think so. It's about placing still-absent pieces: often discussions and debates about us in civil society are conducted without us. But these voices exist, and if you don't want to build a path to make them speak, you are the one excluding them. Those voices need to be heard. I think my perspective can bridge, for example, that of my mother and that of Italians who have always lived in another neighborhood. And I would like people living in public housing to know that their story is interesting. The story of their neighborhood is not representative of their person.

Q: What paths do you envision having initiated with this video podcast?

Iman: It would be interesting to move to other neighborhoods and hear other voices and stories, but also to move out of Milan. It would be great to hear the stories of all the outskirts that are always misrepresented or not told at all.

Selam: We want to tell young people, especially the very young, that all this is possible. What we hope to achieve with My Zone is to encourage others to take the microphone, think about what to tell and how about their neighborhood, and what could be useful to say to improve its narrative or provide a counter-narrative. It would also be nice if unstructured discussion tables emerged, where people spontaneously say what they think. This regardless of the quality of the final product: My Zone is very beautiful because professionals worked on it, but other people, from the grassroots, for example through hip hop, are already sharing their opinions about the neighborhoods, and we hope they have the courage to continue doing so or, if they haven't yet, to find other ways to make themselves heard.