Across the Global South, resistance doesn’t always look like protest. Sometimes it looks like a soccer ball. A song. A radio signal carried across mountains.
What Takes Root: Stories of Resistance and Reclamation is a new first-person podcast from ORA featuring changemakers from India, Africa, and Latin America. Over nine episodes, members of the ORA community share intimate stories of reclaiming voice, power, and possibility,and in their own words.
Over the past four years, ORA has supported fellows across regions to explore how resilience actually takes shape on the ground — through creative activism, community infrastructure, cultural memory, and collective care. This podcast give us a front row seat to their work through story.
From how Muslim girls learned to play soccer in India, to political music shaped by Kenya’s long history of resistance, to community radio reaching isolated Guarani communities in Bolivia, each episode asks a simple question:
What happens when people reclaim space — physical, cultural, or sonic — and make it their own?
New episodes will roll out in the coming weeks, each featuring an ORA fellow or member of the wider ORA community. Thank you to ORA Researcher Karen Given for producing and leading these important conversations.
Episode 1
What Happened When Muslim Girls Started Playing Football
Featuring Sabah Khan
In 2012, almost on a whim, social justice leader Sabah Khan helped found a football team for Muslim girls in Mumbra — India’s largest Muslim ghetto. It wasn’t easy. From fighting for time on Mumbra’s crowded fields to navigating deep societal pressure to keep girls indoors, Sabah shares how something as simple as playing a game became a powerful act of resistance.
What unfolds is not just a story about sport. It’s about visibility. Agency. The quiet revolution of girls stepping onto a field and refusing to shrink.
Listen to the full podcast on your platform of choice.
To learn more about Sabah Khan and her work, view her LinkedIn profile:
Stay tuned for Episode 2 — and the stories still taking root.
