The Hello Frequency

In this episode of The Hello Frequency, I’m joined by Hannah Hafoka, an early childhood teacher living in Ohio and originally from Alaska, for a candid, thought-provoking conversation about empathy, emotions, care, and how we learn to understand one another. Hannah begins with a question she has been asking herself: Do I have empathy? For a long time, she understood empathy as feeling what another person feels. But what happens when you recognise someone’s pain without necessarily feel...

A Conversation with Hafsar Tamesuddin. There are many labels we give people. Refugee. Former refugee. Stateless. Migrant. Asylum seeker. Minority. Foreigner. Queer. And sometimes, long before we meet the person, we think we already know who they are. My conversation with Hafsar Tamesuddin reminded me of something very simple: before all the labels, there is a human being. Perhaps we cannot solve every injustice. But we can choose how we meet another human being. We can list...

In this episode of the Hello Frequency podcast, I’m joined by Nimasha Fernando, a Kiwi Sri Lankan designer and researcher living in Aotearoa New Zealand, who explores identity, language, whakapapa, and belonging through typography. We talk about empathy as something bigger than simply understanding another person. It can also be about humility, care, body language, listening, making mistakes and being okay with not having the right words. Nimasha shares stories about being Sri Lankan and que...

“Empathy is not just listening. It is recognising dignity, challenging dehumanisation, and choosing to act.” In this powerful episode of The Hello Frequency, I sit down with Samira Ghoreishi for a fierce and deeply moving conversation on empathy, migration, anger, healing, and justice. Drawing from her Iranian roots, community work, and lived experience of displacement, Samira challenges us to move beyond passive listening and practise empathy as an ethical, political, and spiritual ch...

In this timely kōrero conversation, I sit down with counsellor, community organiser, facilitator and educator Gaayathri to reflect on empathy, solidarity and resistance in the context of the Definitions of Woman and Man Amendment Bill in Aotearoa New Zealand. We explore why attempts to narrowly define ‘woman’ and ‘man’ are not acts of protection, but forms of exclusion that can harm intersex, trans, non-binary, gender-diverse people, and ultimately all of us. The conversation moves bey...