Meet the Fellow: Sarah Souli

As we introduced ourselves on our very first “Honduras Fellows” Skype call, I was immediately intrigued by the thoughtful and knowledgeable voice of Sarah Souli, a freelance journalist currently based in Athens. Prior to the call, I had made some time to look at the work of the seven women journalists with whom I would be sharing the upcoming trip – Sarah’s work both moved and inspired me. While getting to know her a bit more, I quickly realized that we share a common experience, one that inevitably influences the way we choose to report on stories: moving to our father’s home country as young journalists eager to reconnect with our roots. Curious about how our upbringing and origins mold us into the reporters we are today – and knowing that this trip was Sarah’s first time in Latin America – I asked her to elaborate on the following thought:

How will reporting in a region previously unfamiliar to you and in many ways different from those that you tend to cover, influence the way you report on stories once you return home?

“I helped myself in my lack of knowledge in Honduras by picking a topic that is closely related to capitalism and globalization and how rich countries take advantage of poorer countries, especially laborers. I’ve only reported in the Mediterranean and this is an excellent opportunity to see how culture and politics interact with each other in Central America. I’m really thankful for the opportunity to see – even for a brief moment – how another region is. And I think as journalists the more we are exposed to other cultures the more it helps us understand more intimately different religions and the differences in people, and it also helps us understand how globalized and imperialist our world is, when you see how similar places are. I hope that every time we report we see our responsibilities in telling other people’s stories and I hope it helps me become a more compassionate and open-minded journalist, but also the person that I want to be.“

– Cristina Baussan