Damn! I Ran Into War Zones (Episode 139)

What would you do if the news you were producing no longer felt like the truth? We sit down with author and activist Susan Burgess Lent, who walked away from broadcast journalism and chose to learn firsthand what conflict and poverty do to people, from post-genocide Rwanda to Darfur and the slums of Nairobi. She doesn’t romanticize humanitarian aid or conflict reporting. She tells the story the way the field teaches it: through risk, relationships, and the realities you can’t “unknow” once you’ve witnessed them.

We talk about how real relief projects begin, not with grand plans, but with listening. Susan explains why the most ethical international development work is rooted in humility, cultural awareness, and local leadership, and why treating communities as “projects” is a fast path to harm. She also makes a strong case for trauma-informed care and mental health support in war zones and chronically under-resourced communities, where the psychological toll can be as devastating as the physical shortages.

For younger listeners who want to help, we get practical: the toolkit you need, the role mentors play, why language and geography matter, how safety decisions get made, and what people misunderstand about the UN, NGOs, and how humanitarian funding actually reaches the ground. Susan also shares where to find her books and the bigger idea she still believes in: women’s centers as safe resource hubs in refugee camps, displaced persons camps, and urban slums.

If this conversation challenges you, share it with someone who wants to make a difference, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, and leave a review to help more people find the show. What kind of advocate are you willing to be?

🔗 Connect with Susan Burgees-Lent:

https://susanburgesslent.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Fatima Bey 0:02

MindShift Power Podcast. This is MindShift Power Podcast, the number one critically acclaimed podcast where we have raw, unfiltered conversations that shape tomorrow. I'm your host, Fatima Bay, the Mind Shifter. And welcome everyone. Today we have with us Susan Burgess -Lent, and she's out of Oakland, California. She's an author and an activist and an all-around superwoman. So when you hear her talk today, you're going to hear why I'm saying that. So how are you doing today, Susan?

Susan Burgess-Lent 0:38

I'm good, thanks. It's Monday, and Mondays are always a little challenging.

Fatima Bey 0:45

They are for most of us. So I like to dive right into the conversation because we we have a lot to talk about today. So tell us who you are and what moved you to build what you build.

Susan Burgess-Lent 0:59

Well,

From Detroit To Rwanda

Susan Burgess-Lent 1:00

it's uh uh kind of unexpected given my background. I I grew up in a in a white suburb of Detroit in the 50s and 60s where um segregation was very uh active and that I would choose to um engage in activities in Africa was kind of uh surprising to most of people most of the people that I knew. However, uh I I started my my professional career in television news, broadcast news, and grew completely disenchanted with where it was going and decided that it was time for me to go out and see what the news was missing, in my opinion, almost everything that was going on in Africa. So uh it began uh with uh my first trip to Africa was to Rwanda. It was two years, two years after the genocide, and almost three. And it was soaked in sorrow, a place that I needed to understand what had happened to affect millions of people and leave a legacy that would endure for generations. Um it it was a terrifying experience. Africa is a different mindset from anybody who grows up in the West. It's different.

Fatima Bey 2:34

So I'm gonna go ahead. I'm gonna back up a little bit um because the audience is hearing about your experience, but they don't actually know what you do. What is it that you what do I've done? I said you're an author, but I didn't give more specifics than that.

How Relief Projects Really Start

Susan Burgess-Lent 2:48

Yes, I I write, but what I'd been doing for the last uh 20 or so years is managing or creating, managing, planning traveling to do relief projects in Africa. First for the genocide in Darfur and later on in Kenya, working in uh with the women in the slums, and it evolved from there. I I'm a I'm a good manager. I do a lot of my work after I listen, I ask people, what is it that you need? What is it you want? And I never depart from what they tell me. I don't try to create something that they wouldn't do, although there have been occasions where I would say, How about this? And they go, Oh my God, we never thought of that. All right. For example, like a mental health program. Um, I can't think of any people in the world who are more traumatized and in more in need of mental health services than people who are chronically exposed to conflict or chronically poor. Right. Yeah, yeah. And those kind of uh stresses are unimaginable for most people who live in the West and are reasonably comfortable in the sense that they have a home and they eat every day.

Fatima Bey 4:15

Yeah.

Susan Burgess-Lent 4:16

No, you're right.

Fatima Bey 4:17

You're absolutely right.

Susan Burgess-Lent 4:18

Um and that's not to discount that the U.S. has some really grave poverty issues uh in the homeless situation throughout the country. Um, you know, the uh urban, I guess you still call them ghettos, where people don't have opportunities. Um, you know, the the the prejudice of um the United States and in I'm gonna back up out of that thought. Um so uh working in Africa uh gave me a display.

Fatima Bey 4:53

Hold on, hold on, hold on. You don't back up out of nothing on my show. So I couldn't see where that was going again. One thing I like about you is you are you are very honest in the things that you do say. So go ahead and say what you were going to

Poverty, Power, And Who Gets Excluded

Fatima Bey 5:08

say.

Susan Burgess-Lent 5:08

Uh well I was I was going to say that that in the US, um, especially in with the current administration, that poverty is less visible. It is more affecting the black population, the immigrant population, immigrant Africans, Latin Americans. That's where you see the poverty because the system excludes them from the wealth that's been generated by white folks or stolen in in many cases. Um so uh I felt that part of the work that I was able to do because of my I'm I'm a curious person. I wanted to say, okay, I am reading these things in the paper about this genocide that's going on in Darfur. I want to see it. I want to see what's going on. And boy, did I see what was going on. You you kind of have to show up, and because a lot of it is kind of unbelievable. Um, I I wrote about my experiences. I went back and forth to different parts of Africa, mostly East Africa, for about fifteen years, and luckily had the undying devotion of the people who whose work I was helping. Um uh in one case a Darfur man who I I I was frankly floored that he would trust me with all that he trusted me with. Uh we're so different, you know? A Muslim man and uh and a Catholic girl from the Midwest. I mean, how does that work, right? Especially what what year was that? That was um 19 I mean uh 200 um five? Okay.

Fatima Bey 7:02

So it's still 20 years ago, but I I don't know that everybody I think some people do understand what you're talking about when you say that. Some people do understand that those two things together, even 20 years ago, was an unusual coupling. Um but I think some people still don't understand because in a Western mindset, we're all equal, we're all the same, blah, blah, blah. Hey, we're not supposed to laugh at that because that's not reality. That's supposed to be reality, but those are the concepts that we're taught to believe in. Um and they're not wrong concepts, but they're they're not connected to reality, is why we're laughing. So I'm saying this for the audience's sake, not because you don't know it, Susan, but for the audience's sake, that really 20, even 20 years ago was a big deal. It might be less of a big deal in certain areas now, but 20 years ago it was still a very big deal. And uh, Susan, you didn't care, you just did it anyway, right?

Safety Rules In Conflict Zones

Susan Burgess-Lent 8:06

Well, it wasn't that I didn't care, I was I was more curious, uh maybe naive, about what that situation would do to me and what accommodations and changes that I would need to make in order to be effective. And one of the first things I learned is you go over there and there will be things that will upset you, terrify you, blah, blah, blah. You may not, you may not be a patient when you're there. And patient in the sense that, you know, don't get into, oh, it's all so terrifying, blah, blah, blah. No. No pity party while you're there. Uh, you can pity party when you come home, but um, while you're there, you're there to serve. And service means you have to be in tune with what people are telling you they want, you know, where it's safe to go, how often uh we should do a certain thing, who's crazy in the in the local environment, and who to avoid. But there always is someone, so yeah. You've got to find that person. And I was lucky to have several. Uh good. In in Sudan. Uh, they looked after me. They really, really looked after me. And uh, well, I you know, uh, part of it is is they might have perceived that me, this at the time, how old was I? Like six, fifty something years old. And I've always had white hair since I was like 35. So they thought, maybe they thought, well, this is sort of this elderly person that we need to protect. And I was good with that, you know, because there were many things to be protected from. But there was much more going on between us than that. They were not just protecting me. We were engaging, we were teaching each other about how we thought, what we needed to do. Um, mostly if my driver, for example, is this wonderful guy named Ibrahim, funny guy, if he said, We're not going there, I said, Well, you're, you, you make the call. I will not ask you to go places where you deem it's not safe. You know, and then you get to finding out about people's families and the things that they've gone through and the uh history, oh, everybody in Sudan will will pull you aside and do an hour minimum on the history of that country. And it is complicated, and pretty much everybody will tell you a different story from their perspective. Oh, yeah.

NGOs, The UN, And Blanket Lessons

Susan Burgess-Lent 10:45

So, you know, moving in that environment, uh, and also there were international NGOs, like um, who was there? Uh uh Goal, a kind uh I think World Vision might have been there. Everybody cycled in and out, depending on the state of the conflict. Um, a lot of money in play, um, a lot of people suffering, and for uh most of the time, um, well, I was given sort of privileged access to like UN offices where I could get on Wi-Fi, for example, and needed to communicate. Um, I could get in, but my Darfurri colleagues were not invited. And I thought that was just hideous. And uh, you know, I let them know that uh you have to be kind of careful. I let them know that I didn't approve of that uh policy, and that um in one case um I had a lot of fun sometimes because they they didn't expect this from me as I went to get some blankets from the UN um who was it? Forgot which one of the UN agencies it was. They had a big warehouse, right, somewhere in the area in North Darford where I was. I said, I need a hundred of these blankets. They were like microfiber blankets. And uh they said, we can only give you 20. And I said, because we've already been to that place. And I said, no, you haven't. I want a hundred. And um I managed to get them to, you know, pull them off the shelves, which were stuffed with with uh blankets and other objects that were needed, and um take it to the women who looked at them very critically, like these aren't anything like our big heavy woolen blankets that we use when it gets cold at night. And I said, Well, take it home and test it out. And uh they did, and they came back and they said, Man, those things work. They're great. We love them.

Fatima Bey 12:57

I

The Cost Of Witnessing Suffering

Fatima Bey 12:58

wanna I wanna for Susan, I want to back up for one moment. You're telling us about your experiences in these places, um, war-torn places, and going in there, you know, uh, which that takes a lot of balls, to be honest with you. Um so what what you have you've what you've done with your experiences is you've you've documented them. You've documented them uh through books and other forms of journalism. Right. There are youth out there listening right now, because this is uh about youth, and I had you come on because uh because of your multitude of decades of experience. I mean, you over 30 years, I don't remember how many years, but over 30 years of of experience doing this, you have documented, like you said in the earlier, what most people didn't want to admit, deal with, or talk about. You're you dive into the deep, uncomfortable abyss that people want to run away from. That's a big deal. And the reason I'm I wanted you on the show is because there's so many other young people right now who actually have the heart and the mind to do what you've done. And I also want to point out that journalism doesn't just come in one form. And there are many different ways that you can take media, whether it's writing, whether it's video, there are many different types of media. Um, not just people with the title journalist, because you can write about it. You can get on, you know, on audio, get on video, write about it in a blog, be it on the news, but they're all different forms of media. Yes. For for the young people listening right now, I want them to um understand something. So when you look back, uh all the places that you've been, you went into dangerous, like seriously dangerous conflict zones. These weren't just, you know, uh little uncomfortable. These were places where you had the very serious risk of ending up dead. And you went in anyway because you were determined. You're like, I'm curious. Yeah, I know that I this is dangerous. Uh-huh. I'm still going. And you you pretty much did that. So, what made you say yes when everything around you, and probably people around you, were saying no, don't do that. What are you doing, you stupid white lady? Why are you going over there for these Africans? I'm just I'm just rewarding what I know you probably heard in different words. So you know I'm telling the truth. That's why you're laughing. So they say, you know, saying all these sort of different things. So what what did the decision after you talked about cost a moment ago. What did that decision actually cost you in ways that you didn't expect?

Susan Burgess-Lent 15:46

Well, you when you go to places like Darfur or the the slums of of Nairobi, um you see things that you cannot unknow. And you have to be prepared for a level of suffering or a level of in some cases, people uh uh uh have gone crazy. I've seen in war zones and among women um that that thousand-yard stair where you know they're not here anymore. And they may come back if they get some help, but the likelihood of that happening is pretty remote. You have to understand your own capacity for for witnessing other people's misery and doing something about it. You don't just go, oh, that's too bad. I mean, you have to have tools in your toolkit with you, and one of those important tools is be sure you get the best intelligence about the situation that you possibly can. That means you have to have allies in the field, and you have to have allies out of the field. There are some terrific, I learned some really terrific lessons from people who went to worse places than I did, uh, where there were ongoing uh epidemics in like Ebola and really uh active, you know, missile strikes and stuff like that, um, where uh they would say, look, here are the things that you need to do in order to survive is protect protect yourself by by the people you choose to work with. Um and if there's somebody in the mix that is really aggravating, then you either work it out or you don't work together. Um that's not always possible, but you have to make accommodations. Um the other thing is is what I mentioned before is you you you can't be a victim. You can't join the crowd of victims that are surrounding you. You are there to help. And what are you what's in your toolkit? Well, you can be a listener, you can be a connector of people and resources. Uh there are sometimes you have to be their defender from people who are just ignorant or worse, have evil intentions. Uh there's a lot of roles that you can play, but first of all, you have to know I I I confess I kind of jumped in without sort of the academic background that you could now get for international studies and all that. I think that if you're a good traveler to start with, and you should do that in the US if you're based here, travel and find out what people are thinking and doing so that you get a sense of how much you can bend with what's going on, how much you can adapt to it. And then you find the best possible people to advise you on, say, you want to go into humanitarian relief work. Well, you better find some really good mentors because the the business is changing all the time.

Skills That Keep You Alive

Susan Burgess-Lent 19:04

The money, like for example, the biggest change that has occurred is all the money went away when the government closed down USAID. It was a huge, huge impact on millions of people, some many of whom will die because that aid has been removed. So following that, the trends in funding will tell you a lot about where the priorities in the international community are. You need to know your geography, and my God, please do a second language. You know, the it's so important to be able to converse in the language of the place that you're at. I know a little bit of of Arabic, I know a little bit of Swahili, I never learned enough to really communicate, and and people's values are encoded in their language. So that's really important. I I regret not being a better student of language. Uh and you know, you learning negotiation skills are are pretty important too. Yeah. Will these people that we're approaching pull out their guns and threaten us? Do we have money to pay them to not do that? Uh is that what we're gonna do? You you you know, you have to do these think throughs of all the things that can happen to you when you go in the field.

Fatima Bey 20:32

Uh this is why I have you on here. I love the practicality that you bring to the conversation. The the real that's uh no, really, that's why I had you on here because I thank you. You just gave some real stuff that people don't think about because sometimes, and I and because I I because I've gone to high schools and I've talked to a lot of youth, and like, what do you want to do? A lot of them do have big hearts and they really want to do, they want to help and they just don't know how sometimes. And but a lot of times people get, and this isn't just a teenager thing, people get starry-eyed and they get big hearts. They really are genuinely well-intended, but they throw their brain out the window when they want to go over instead of you know being practical, like people are gonna put a guns in your face. You ready to handle that? You know, you are can you handle you learn a language? You know the geography, you're gonna learn something about the culture, you're just gonna show up and say, I'm here to help. Yay!

Susan Burgess-Lent 21:27

It's gotta be get everybody turning away from me right away. It's like, uh, right.

Fatima Bey 21:34

And or people just being turned off because you're not you're coming in. Um, and I just want to talk about this real briefly. I didn't have this on my list, but I think it's important to point this out. Not for your sake, but for the audience. Okay.

People Are Not Projects

Fatima Bey 21:48

One thing I know about you because of the conversations that we had, and because I'm good at reading people, do you see the people in the other countries with the brown skin, the dark brown or light brown? Whatever country you're in, do you see them as projects or people?

Susan Burgess-Lent 22:07

Well, that's a good question. I I do think that a lot of organizations uh treat them as projects. I've I've witnessed it and been horrified by it. I think that when you make a relationship with anybody anywhere in the world, and in particular with people who are facing these really difficult circumstances, this cannot be sort of fun and tenative. It has to be genuine and you're willing to commit. I I'm still in contact with maybe half a dozen people that I've worked with over in in uh both Kenya and Sudan because I like them. I like them very much, and they taught me a lot about what I needed to know. Excuse me. Um if you don't see the people that you're helping as people with there's all kinds of needs. One of them is to s is the need to feel seen. I had an experience with this one woman to give you a real quick example. She had she had uh told me about how she had fled with her family from their home that was being burned down and people were being killed by the Janjawee in Darfur. She was a lovely woman. I I liked her immediately. Um and at one point she says, you know what? I can't talk about this anymore. And I said, Okay, I understand. And then she said, you know, I I have this um I have this uh cut on my foot. Could you take a look at it? And I thought, what a great thing to ask me. Fine, I'll do that. Give me your foot. And it was that moment at which we most connected when I was cleaning off her wound, a small thing, a very tiny thing really in the grand scheme. But it was personal contact. It was, I see that you have this cut and I have the medicine here to put on it and banish it, you're good to go. A small thing, but that's where you make the connections, you know. I I find that's true in life here too, is like you how people perk up if you, you know, meet them and say, Hey, love the color of your nail polish, you know? Oh, yeah. It's a it's a little thing. I mentioned it because little things.

Fatima Bey 24:34

I mentioned it because I think it's so important to for people to, and we're talking to youth right now, and there's so many of them that actually do care about human beings and want to get into this field with with uh you know, with the right intentions. But I think it's important to point out, because I it's just important to point out that there you're dealing with human beings. You're not dealing with projects or things or concepts or ideas in a book. You're dealing with people who have lives, who have families, who have desires, who have attitudes, and all the same stuff the rest of us humans have. And very often people get get into helping other helping out others or other just altruistic activities, I'll say. Because sometimes because they want to boost their ego, make them feel good about themselves. Right. And Susan, you can respond to this. I think those are the exact right people that should stay the hell home.

Susan Burgess-Lent 25:37

That's a leading question. Yeah, I I think that that you know, number one thing that that you have to enter this field with is uh two things. A sense of curiosity. You need to figure out what you don't know and learn it. And the second is humility. That if you are given access to a place and a people who are experiencing great experiencing great suffering due to forces beyond their control, then you need to do be able to do the smallest things that they need. They need a bag of flour, go get it. You know, uh, they need uh notebooks and pens down the road, support the local business, get your notebooks and pens. You know, um, that you not only go in with a sense of uh you got your buffer team who's going to tell you what to do and not to do, but also, you know, knows the layer of the land, the language. So my translator was fluent in in both colloquial and high Arabic, so that she could know when people changed tone and would tell me so. And I'm like, oh my god, who knew? Um and uh I don't think it's called High Arabic, it was another more formal version that she was talking about. And uh so you have really clever, smart people like that who also you can laugh with because we stayed together in a um like a barracks at the uh at the compound of the um United Nations peacekeeping force that was uh based in um El Fasher in Sudan in Darfur. And she and I would laugh uproariously about the stuff that we could not get at the store. And one day we got like a like a 10,000-year-old uh Hershey bar. I said, God assumes. And it was white and all like crumbling. I'm eating it anyway. Of course, it makes you sick when it's got all that on it, but you know, I only got sick twice, uh, not badly either, but one time being being courteous to accept something that looked really filled with germs, but if I refused it, I would insult them. Uh so sometimes you make a call, you you you know, minimize the amount that you take in, and I think it was some kind of a cooked goat, uh, but the conditions were not sanitary. So, you know, what is the custom? You know, if you, for example, it in that part of the world, if you admire something somebody wears, like a bracelet or or or has a uh device that you really like, if you say, That is so cool, I love that, they'll give it to you. You cannot do that.

Fatima Bey 28:36

Yeah, and that's true for a lot of cultures. I've I've learned because I've worked with so many people from different cultures all over the world. I have learned, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like you. I'm like, oh, that's so pretty. That's when I I give people compliments all the time. But I've learned to dial it back a little bit because then they start getting, I'm like, I'm not trying to take your stuff. I was just trying to compliment you. But in certain cultures, that's yeah, that is a that's true in a lot of the world I've I've discovered.

Susan Burgess-Lent 29:02

Yeah, and and so knowing those those cult those cultural changes, and in a country uh like Kenya or Sudan, where there are so many tribes and so many languages, you you have to get the right one. If you're gonna deal with uh the Kikuyu people, then you better uh uh have your Kikuyu um person that will uh introduce you to people. Tribal in not necessarily a bad way, just because those are my people, you know?

Fatima Bey 29:35

Well, you gotta you gotta understand the people that you're gonna be dealing with, no matter where in the world you're going. I don't I don't even within the country, you what is Texas like? That part of Texas has a different culture. Let's learn it. No matter where you're going. You know, I think it's important because again, going back to that mindset of people are human beings. They're not projects, they're not just things to be studied, they're people. And that I I really want to stress because I see so many people who don't take that into account, who don't think about that perspective at all, and then they come at people incorrectly or at situations incorrectly, uh, and put themselves or others in danger because they really don't understand.

Susan Burgess-Lent 30:16

Because they're stupid, right? They've done something stupid. Yeah.

Fatima Bey 30:21

Basically, they may not have intended to do something stupid, but they but they ended up doing something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let me ask you this.

A Practical Roadmap For Young Helpers

Fatima Bey 30:31

You if you're talking to a young person right now who's listening and they're like, I want to do what she's done. Oh my God, she's so brave. I really wish I could do that. I, but they're being told that their desire to go overseas or their desire to help, um, even in this country, to go into a bad neighborhood where there's a lot of gangs, because that's just like going to total warfare sometimes. If, you know, they want to go and help people wherever it is, whatever color they are, whatever country they're in, and they want to go and they're being told that it's a problem. They need to stay the little behind home or whatever little comments they make like that. What do you say to that young person right now?

Susan Burgess-Lent 31:08

Well, uh, for a teenager or even young 20s, you have a lot more studying to do, whether it's formal education or informal, uh, before anybody will bring you on board to do this kind of work. I mean, you have to apply to these organizations with some something they want, preferably experience, but things also like maybe you're a medic, uh, maybe you're a um translator. You know the the key is what about this whole thing interests you beyond the fact of I'm going to help people? Are you a good logistic uh logistic? Do you know how to arrange it like a party? Can you apply those skills to getting around a country you don't know? Are you good uh with languages? Learn one. Are you good with um uh finding out uh from the grapevine how to get certain supplies that you need, how to put the word out and get what is your talent? What is the thing that you do that just gives you a buzz every time you do it? Um and in many cases, you're gonna have to do multiple things if you especially if you work for a small organization. Um I'm kind of biased because I I did work for a small organization and I know how many shoes I needed to fill. But the more skills that you acquire, and you can't imagine, like, for example, small example. I learned Canva some time ago because we needed stuff and we couldn't hire graphic artists, and so we put together little cute things or informant made something that looked professional, right? That's a skill. How many how many applications do you know that are out there that'll be useful out in the field? Um, a lot of them you wouldn't expect. Um, you can start following organizations or or news organizations that provide the the information that I look at, which is a thing called DevEx, D-E-V-E-X.com. They have news from all over the world. It's kind of the corporate end of things, but you got to keep an eye on the corporate end. Um and the other one is called uh the new humanitarian, which will give you what I what's called sitreps, a situation report, um, but couched in uh the experience of one or two people. There are multiple sources of, I'm trying to think of the other one that that has uh an amazing amount of interest. The UN agencies have all stuff all over the place, whether or not they actually do do the work. Oh, here's a common misunderstanding. Everybody thinks if you work for the UN that you're actually going to do a project. No. The UN farms out pretty much every every project they want to be done to a local organ, well, a local organization, preferably, they're starting to say, yes, go local. But usually it's it's one of the um usual suspects like um uh name uh Refugees International, uh one of the big NGOs. Now you can get a job there, but you need experience. You can get a job with a smaller organization if you're willing to learn a whole lot of skills and do them well. But you you need you need to know what turns you on. Don't go if you hate the idea of going to South America to do stuff. Don't study South America. Study the place where you want to go. You know? Um stay with the thing that just lights you up. That's where you'll find people that'll help you. And the trail opens up. It does open up. You wouldn't believe.

Fatima Bey 35:14

So there's more than one way of helping out, basically. It's you can decide what that is, but if you got a burning desire, it doesn't have to be necessarily running in in front of uh of uh gunfire or something.

Susan Burgess-Lent 35:27

There's different ways of as a matter of fact, that would be the least desirable.

Fatima Bey 35:33

Yeah, I would say something.

Susan Burgess-Lent 35:34

You know, and I and I have to mention this. Uh there's been, I I've forgotten the exact number, but at least 200 uh journalists killed in the Middle East this year so far. That's not a safe, safe job. No. So um and that include that that probably includes uh humanitarian aid workers. I have to go and look at those figures again. But call up on your computer number of deaths of humanitarian aid workers, and you will be astonished. So it's not a thing that you just want to go, oh, this sounds like so much interesting stuff. You have to be fully prepared and well armored to go in the field.

Books, Women’s Centers, And Where To Find Susan

Fatima Bey 36:17

And I love that you just speak in that reality because it is real. So, Susan, tell us what you are working on now and how can people find you?

Susan Burgess-Lent 36:25

Well, I have a website, it's Susan BurgessLent.com, and I have a book that just came out, a novel, called When the Girls Stop Singing, which is set in Sudan. And the one before that is called Uh Trouble Ahead, Dangerous Missions with Desperate People, which is kind of a um memoir, I guess I'd call it, of the time I spent between like 2005 and 2017 of um my experiences in Africa, which led to my next thing, which was creating Women's Centers International, which uh created you know safe resource centers for women in conflict zones or slums or you know, compromised situations. I don't have an affiliation with them anymore. I I handed it over to one of my former board members. But uh every refugee camp, every displaced persons camp, every slum in any country would benefit from a women's center. We had one here in Oakland. It worked really well for three years. People said, I didn't want to give any more money. Um okay. So it comes it always comes down to that.

Fatima Bey 37:46

So people can find you on your website and they can uh take a look at your books um that are that be basically they're novels, but they came from your actual real experiences. And I think that matters. I think that matters greatly. Um that makes them more interesting and more real.

Susan Burgess-Lent 38:06

Well, yeah, that's true. It it you have to go with what you know, and if you know these things that are dramatic and um engaging, then you you can't write them. You have to know it first. Yeah.

Fatima Bey 38:23

Well, Susan, thank you for for coming on. It has been difficult to keep this conversation as sure as I need to. Uh there's so much more that we really could talk about. And it's just you are just you have so much to say and so much life experience that it's it's difficult to contain. But I really appreciate you coming on and giving insight into something that people just don't talk about from this perspective. Um and I really, really respect all of the work that you have done and all that you're still doing. And folks, she's gonna be on for another episode, and I'm not gonna tell you what it is right now, but it's really good. It's different than this, but it's really good.

Susan Burgess-Lent 39:07

That was fun.

Fatima Bey 39:09

And

The Advocacy Challenge

Fatima Bey 39:10

now for a mind-shifting moment. We need more people like Susan in this world. But I want to talk about an underlying principle, not just in this conversation, but in Susan's whole life. And that is advocacy. She has been an advocate for the ones we wouldn't otherwise hear of. The parts of the story we wouldn't otherwise know about. She's been an advocate for people other than herself. Are you an advocate for anything? Do you practice any sort of advocacy that is standing up for someone else, looking out for someone else? That principle can be played out in many different ways. You don't have to run into warfare. You don't have to run into serious war or write a book in order to be an advocate. Do you advocate for that child on the street that you know is ignored and mistreated, that you know is growing up with low self-value? Do you just look at it and say, Ain't my problem, none of my business? Or do you find a way to help? Advocacy looks like many different things. And it doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be loud. It can be small. I want you to think about what do you actually care about? Who do you actually want to see advocated for? And then I want you to ask yourself, what can I do about it? Not mention all the roadblocks that are there, because there's always going to be some. But what can you do to enhance someone else's life? Because when you do, you're enhancing all of us. You've been listening to Mind Shift Power Podcast for complete show notes on this episode. And to join our global movement, find us at FatimaBey.com. Until next time, always remember there's power in shifting your thinking.