Duke University

This podcast that I listened to was put on by Duke University and their center for documentary studies. This center is responsible for putting out collaborative documentaries that focus on sharing community issues and expressing artistic ideas. The podcast tha I listened to was an interview with Nilaya, a girl who had suddenly become homeless after she ended an abusive realtionship. She lived with her daughter but found it hard to support the both of them on just one income. She moved in with a roommate which worked out well, until her roommate was laid off from her job.

Nilaya explained that becoming homeless was one of the worst feelings because she was no longer part of the regular population. She also realized that even though she had a job, that did not mean that she could not become homeless. There are a lot of working homeless people out there, and she had to learn this first hand. After she got evicted from her apartment, she started looking for shelters that her and her daughter could stay at until she found some kind of affordable housing. It was through this shelter that Nilaya became involved with project hope.

Project Hope is an shelter project that helps the homeless. Through Project Hope, Nilaya started attending meetingss for Homeless For Families, which brings together homeless families and gives them good information and avenues out of being homeless. Nilaya finally got out of her situation and the shelter after a whole year. She is now involved in educating other homeless families about what it means to be homeless, why they are, and how they can get out of it. She learned from her experiences and is now able to share with and help others out of similar situations.

I thought that this was a great podcast and I love that Duke University is using the podcasting technology to teach others. Other universities would be smart to follow in the same footsteps!