A story about the UN Charter clause no one has ever used, the common ground hiding beneath our deepest differences, and why refusing to stop dreaming might be the most defiant act left.

The UN Charter was written in 1945 — before the internet, before climate science, before most of the world had a seat at the table. One third of the world was still colonized when those rules were drafted. And buried inside them is a clause that has never once been used: a mechanism to review and update the Charter itself.

Heba Aly spent a decade reporting from conflict zones, then led one of the world's foremost humanitarian newsrooms. And then she decided that bearing witness wasn't enough. This conversation follows that turning point. It's about Article 109, the untouched clause that could open a global conversation about new rules for a new world.

But underneath that, it's about something quieter and more universal: how we find common ground when everything feels intractable.

Heba tells a story in this episode about two people fighting over an orange, each certain they want the same thing — only to discover they each needed a different part of it. That story is, in many ways, the whole method. Whether you are mediating between nations or trying to understand why your neighbour voted differently than you did, the path forward starts the same way: go one layer deeper. Beneath the position is an interest. Beneath the interest is usually a fear. And beneath the fear — almost always — is something we share.

She also shares what she has learned about change: that it requires three things to be true at once — dissatisfaction with what exists, a shared vision for what could be, and belief that a path forward is real. And that even inside the largest bureaucracies in the world, it is a handful of individual human beings, willing to commit and believe, who carry a movement through.

The work is long. The odds feel steep. And somewhere in a Pacific island going underwater, or a city living under bombing the Security Council cannot stop, someone is waiting for the rules to catch up. This episode is for everyone who hasn't given up on imagining otherwise.

🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES

Article 109 Movement: article109.org

UN Charter, un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text

👤 ABOUT THE GUEST

Heba Aly is an Egyptian-Canadian journalist and advocate for global governance reform. After a decade reporting from conflict zones and years leading The New Humanitarian, she became Director of Article 109 — a growing international movement backed by former heads of state working to activate an untouched clause in the UN Charter and make the world's most important institution fit for the world we actually live in.

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The Hummingbird Collective is co-produced by the Caux Initiatives of Change Foundation, supported through Sarah Noble's participation in the Youth for Peace: UNESCO Intercultural Leadership Programme (2025–2026). Guests speak from their own experience and perspective, which may not reflect the views of the show or its partners.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

A story about stepping into rooms full of hatred, asking for weapons to be left at the door, and what 25 years of peacemaking reveals about the conversations we have every day.

Violent conflict is at its highest point in decades. Antje has spent more than two decades facilitating dialogue between adversaries in Tunisia, the DRC, Ukraine, Yemen, the Caucasus, Indonesia, and beyond — working alongside the EU and the UN. Her research focuses on the blind spots in conflict work: what gets overlooked precisely when the stakes are highest.

At its heart, mediation is an act of intercultural dialogue — the art of speaking and listening across the deepest human differences. True intercultural dialogue doesn't begin with technique; it begins with the willingness to be changed by what you hear. Antje has spent her career in that space, and what she's learned there applies far beyond the negotiation room.

She shares what it took to ask armed men to leave their weapons at the door. She talks about the early mistake of trying to take emotion out of a room — and what she learned when nobody called her back. And she maps three blind spots in peace work: the illusion of neutrality, the obsession with process over relationship, and the pressure to reach a solution before the dialogue has done its work.

Her two drops for the rest of us: peace doesn't start in a negotiation room — it starts in how we show up. And the next time someone says something that stings, ask not what they said, but why.

🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES Antje's podcast:

Masterpeace

👤 ABOUT THE GUEST Antje Herrberg has spent over 25 years at the intersection of conflict mediation and political transition, facilitating dialogue between adversaries in some of the world's most complex conflicts. She has worked within and alongside the European Union and the United Nations, and her research focuses on the blind spots in conflict work — what gets overlooked in moments of tension and decision. She shares these insights through writing and her podcast, Masterpiece.

📋 SHARE YOUR REFLECTION Five questions. Your responses help us make the case for more stories like this one 👉 https://forms.gle/mf8MVX3cUsqYECrL9

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The Hummingbird Collective is co-produced by the Caux Initiatives of Change Foundation, supported through Sarah Noble's participation in the Youth for Peace: UNESCO Intercultural Leadership Programme (2025–2026). Guests speak from their own experience and perspective, which may not reflect the views of the show or its partners.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

What does it take to keep fighting when everything has been taken from you?

Over the past two decades, Afghanistan slowly built something new. Girls went to school. Women went to work. Women were elected to parliament. And then in 2021, it was erased. No school for girls. No work. No voice. Within hours of the Taliban's return, Afghan women broke open the locks of their schools anyway. They are still fighting today — inside Afghanistan and across Afghan communities in exile — and their fight sits at the frontline of the global struggle for women's and girls' rights.

This episode asks what that fight looks like from Geneva, from exile, from a late-night tram ride home from the library — when you realise you are safe, your daughters are safe, and more than 20 million women are not. It asks what intercultural solidarity actually requires. And it asks what it feels like — in your body — when your rights are taken away, and when they are given back.

Our guest is Bahishta Nothani. She grew up in Afghanistan under the Taliban, went to school in secret, and eventually made her way to Geneva where she became a dentist and co-founded the Afghanistan Women's Rights Association (AWRA). She speaks not from a distance but from lived experience — of what it means to have your rights stripped away, and to refuse to stop fighting regardless.

BE THE CHANGE

Talk about the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan — in your meetings, your gatherings, your everyday conversations. Wherever you are, whoever you are with. Bahishta's ask is simple: do not let the world look away. The energy of human beings, she says, is something no force can match. Keep the conversation going.

🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES

Afghanistan Women's Rights Association (AWRA): https://awra.ch/

👤 ABOUT THE GUEST Bahishta Nothani grew up in Afghanistan under the Taliban, where girls were forbidden from going to school. She went anyway — in secret, across borders, and at great personal risk. Evacuated and granted refugee status in Switzerland, she trained as a dentist in Geneva, learned French, and built a new life — one defined by the same refusal to give up that carried her through childhood. Today she is a mother of two and the co-founder of AWRA, which supports underground schools, health clinics, and shelters for thousands of women and children inside Afghanistan. She speaks not only from expertise, but from lived experience of what it means to have your rights taken away — and to keep fighting regardless.

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Five questions.Your responses help us understand what's shifting — and make the case for more stories like this one 👉https://forms.gle/mf8MVX3cUsqYECrL9

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Share your drops of water: #HummingbirdCollective

Subscribe for more stories of everyday courage

The Hummingbird Collective is co-produced by the Caux Initiatives of Change Foundation, supported through Sarah Noble's participation in the Youth for Peace: UNESCO Intercultural Leadership Programme (2025–2026). Guests speak from their own experience and perspective, which may not reflect the views of the show or its partners.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.