The Documentary Podcast Folgen

In Oklahoma, Tayo Popoola discovers the story of the slaves owned by the Cherokee Indian tribe. Since the emancipation of the slaves in the 19th Century, there has been an often uneasy relationship between the so called “Freedmen” and their former masters, both racial minorities with long histories of persecution in the US. In 2017 the Freedmen won a long battle to be admitted as full members of the Cherokee tribe.

This is the flipside of migration. Migrants make headlines all the time, but what about those they leave behind? The so-called ‘motherless villages’ of Indonesia; rural Senegal where not enough men are left to work the fields and the Guatemalan parents who risk their children’s lives, sending them on the perilous journey to the US. Stories of deserted families and communities, revealing the bigger picture of the country that has been abandoned.

South America’s second poorest nation is about to get very rich - but will the prosperity be shared? A series of oil discoveries in Guyanese waters has revealed almost unimaginable riches beneath the seabed; enough oil to catapult Guyana to the top of the continent’s rich list. Next year, the oil - and cash - is due to start flowing. The major new industry could help solve two of Guyana’s big problems: high youth unemployment and the emigration of most of its graduates. But as young Guyanese prepare for a future in oil and dream of lives transformed, some fear the so-called oil curse will see a corrupt elite squander and steal the country’s newfound wealth. Presenter/producer: Simon Maybin (Photo: Kiwana Baker, right, hopes that a career in oil will give her opportunities that her mother, Marslyn Pollard, left, never had. Credit: BBC)