The Documentary Podcast Folgen

Each year young people from the tiny West African nation of The Gambia try to reach Europe through “The Backway” - a costly, perilous journey over land and sea.Many do not make it. In recent years, the EU has done deals with several North African nations to clamp down on irregular migration. Though human rights groups say the treatment of migrants can be brutal - allegations the authorities deny. But each year thousands of African migrants say they have no choice but to return home.It can be a struggle to return. Some are traumatised by their experience and face stigma for having failed to reach Europe. Others are already planning to try again.For Assignment, Alex Last travels to The Gambia to find out what happens to migrants who've risked everything to get to Europe, but end up back home.

Kiran Gandhi, aka Madame Gandhi, is an American artist, activist and producer who originally started out as a percussionist for popular British artist MIA, and American electronic music duo Thievery Corporation. She holds a masters degree in Music Science Technology at Stanford University and is on a mission to find innovative ways of using music to motivate and inspire people to care about climate change. Tom Raine follows Kiran on her journey to record brand new sounds in the North Pole, where she hopes to record everything from glaucous gulls, black-leg kittiwakes to common guillemots, as well as arctic foxes, seals and maybe polar bears. He then follows her to her studio in London to see exactly how Kiran sculpts these sounds into hi-hats, kicks, snare drums, bass tones, and more.

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, we join a group of African-Americans who have all taken a DNA test and discovered their ancestors came from this country on the West Coast of Africa, before they were trafficked to the US and enslaved. Over their two week trip, we explore the bustling city of Freetown, a very different experience to the US. They travel to remote villages where their ancestors may have lived. Here they are each adopted by a local family and given a traditional name according to the ethnic group indicated in their DNA test. There is also a boat trip to Bunce Island, where they find the ruins of a slave fort where men, women and children were held captive in appalling conditions. And we meet other returnees who have come back to Sierra Leone to make a difference.