“Making Contact” is an award-winning radio show and podcast that digs into the story beneath the story. We examine the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground, building a more just world, featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews.
We need affordable housing now!
We need affordable housing now! On today’s episode, we look more closely at two stories that underscore the importance of affordable housing. First, we’ll examine what the recent Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson...
Karinda Dobbins: Black and Blue
On this week’s episode, we speak with Bay Area based comedian Karinda Dobbins about the release of her debut comedy album, Black & Blue. In Black & Blue, Karinda shares personal stories, finding humor in the most ordinary...
East Orosi’s Long Struggle for Water Part 2: The Role of Community Utility Districts
In Part 1 of our series on water in the Central Valley of California we visited a town called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also...
Culture & Spirituality As Substance Use Treatment in Indigenous Communities
In the late 1990s, psychologist Dr. Joseph Gone, a professor and member of the Aaniiih Gros Ventre tribe, returned home during his doctoral training to the Fort Belknap Reservation in north central Montana. There, he set aside eurocentric...
East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water
East Orosi hasn’t had safe drinking water in over 20 years. The water is full of nitrates, runoff from industrial agriculture, which is harmful to human health. The community has taken action to find a solution, from lobbying at the...
The Healing Project: An Abolitionist Story (Encore)
Composer, pianist, and vocalist Samora Pinderhughes tells us about The Healing Project. The Healing Project, a fundamentally abolitionist project, explores the structures of systemic racism and the prison industrial complex. This story...
Caring Relationships: Negotiating Meaning and Maintaining Dignity (Encore)
The vast majority of care recipients are exclusively receiving unpaid care from a family member, friend, or neighbor. The rest receive a combination of family care and paid assistance, or exclusively paid formal care. Whether you’re a...
Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice (Encore)
Inflammatory diseases are on the rise around the world, and when left unaddressed can turn chronic. Now, doctors are finally starting to pay more attention. But why & when does a beneficial part of our immune system turn against us?...
Family Matters: What Helps Black Trans Kids Thrive
Kids are coming out as LGBTQ+ younger than ever before, making their identities more politicized than ever before. Hateful political rhetoric and discriminatory laws are likely contributing to the poor mental health documented among...
Family Matters: How Communities Support Trans Kids in Conservative States
In 2023, Kirin Clawson’s endocrinologist placed a puberty-blocking implant in her arm, a medical intervention that is associated with improved mental health for many trans kids with gender dysphoria. In February, Indiana joined several...
- Blog
- By Amy Gastelum
- By Anita Johnson
- By Lucy Kang
- By Salima Hamirani
Introducing Frequencies of Change Media (FoC Media)
Hi friends, We’re thrilled to share some exciting news with you: National Radio Project (International Media Project) is evolving into Frequencies of Change Media (FoC Media)! Why the change? Well, it’s simple: We’ve outgrown our...
An Interview with Summer Intern Alex Corey
This was an exciting and eventful summer at Making Contact, especially as we had Alex Corey join us as our summer intern! Like the journalists we are, we had to interview him about his time at Making Contact. Be sure to check out his...
Help Us Support Journalism from Gaza
Click here to donate to our Gaza Reporting Fund! Over the next few weeks, we are running a special campaign to fundraise for our Palestinian colleague Rami Almeghari. He is currently in Gaza with his family as Israeli...
7 Shows to Listen to this Women’s History Month
We’re knee deep in Women’s History Month and at Making Contact we’re celebrating the best way we know how: highlighting the stories of women making change and fighting for a better future for ourselves and all those around us...
9 Shows to Listen to this Black History Month
This month at Making Contact, and all year round, we are excited to honor, celebrate and recount the stories of Black people and Black heritage in America. Storytelling allows us the opportunity to uncover the lives, the hope, and the...
Culture & Spirituality As Substance Use Treatment in Indigenous Communities
In the late 1990s, psychologist Dr. Joseph Gone, a professor and member of the Aaniiih Gros Ventre tribe, returned home during his doctoral training to the Fort Belknap Reservation in north central Montana. There, he set aside eurocentric...
Family Matters: What Helps Black Trans Kids Thrive
Kids are coming out as LGBTQ+ younger than ever before, making their identities more politicized than ever before. Hateful political rhetoric and discriminatory laws are likely contributing to the poor mental health documented among...
Family Matters: How Communities Support Trans Kids in Conservative States
In 2023, Kirin Clawson’s endocrinologist placed a puberty-blocking implant in her arm, a medical intervention that is associated with improved mental health for many trans kids with gender dysphoria. In February, Indiana joined several...
You Can Still Have An Abortion
How does anyone make sense of abortion access these days? We sat down with All Options Pregnancy Resource Center in Bloomington, Indiana to talk about what’s changed since Indiana’s full abortion ban went into effect last August....
7 Shows to Listen to this Women’s History Month
We’re knee deep in Women’s History Month and at Making Contact we’re celebrating the best way we know how: highlighting the stories of women making change and fighting for a better future for ourselves and all those around us...
The Black Panthers in Algeria
On today’s Making Contact, our friends from the podcast, Kerning Cultures, bring us “Black Panthers in Algeria.” It’s the story of when Elaine Mokhtefi landed in newly independent Algeria in the early 1960s and quickly found...
Karinda Dobbins: Black and Blue
On this week’s episode, we speak with Bay Area based comedian Karinda Dobbins about the release of her debut comedy album, Black & Blue. In Black & Blue, Karinda shares personal stories, finding humor in the most ordinary...
The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation
Caste—one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world—is thriving. Despite the ban on Untouchability 70 years ago, caste impacts 1.9 billion people in the world. Every 15 minutes, a crime is perpetrated against a Dalit person. The...
The Art of Healing: Finding Strength Through Frida Kahlo
This week on Making Contact we take a look at one of the most prolific Mexican artists, Frida Kahlo, and how she inspired the Latina artist collective “The Phoenix Fridas.” Producer Anthony Wallace tells the story of Thania...
America’s Black Capital
“America’s Black Capital: How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy” chronicles how a center of Black excellence emerged amid virulent expressions of white nationalism as African Americans pushed back...
Crosswinds: The Cost of Coal
In this week’s show, we take a look at the health, environmental and financial costs of coal that fall to people living nearby. With the help of our partner podcast Crosswinds, we meet three impacted communities along a railroad...
We need affordable housing now!
We need affordable housing now! On today’s episode, we look more closely at two stories that underscore the importance of affordable housing. First, we’ll examine what the recent Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson...
Borders: What are they good for?
What are borders, and why do we have them? And how is violent border enforcement at the US-Mexico border connected to Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza? And what happens when borders cross living land and communities? We’ll dig...
7 Shows to Listen to this Women’s History Month
We’re knee deep in Women’s History Month and at Making Contact we’re celebrating the best way we know how: highlighting the stories of women making change and fighting for a better future for ourselves and all those around us...
No, COVID Isn’t “Over,” and the Need for Continued Community
This March marks four years since the COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared. Public health failures and government inaction have forced communities to take matters into their own hands. On today’s show, we look at two groups...
The Problematic History of Gender Testing at the Olympics
The attacks on Imane Khelif’s gender at this year’s 2024 Paris Olympics is not new. In fact, the focus on women’s appearance and gender expression goes back to the founding of the Olympics, the minute women entered elite...
East Orosi’s Long Struggle for Water Part 2: The Role of Community Utility Districts
In Part 1 of our series on water in the Central Valley of California we visited a town called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also...
East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water
East Orosi hasn’t had safe drinking water in over 20 years. The water is full of nitrates, runoff from industrial agriculture, which is harmful to human health. The community has taken action to find a solution, from lobbying at the...
Survival for All: Securing Vaccines for the Global South
At the beginning of the pandemic, we reported on the extreme inequality of the vaccine rollout to low income countries. Their access was hindered because of a Western patent system which was imposed globally through the WTO. At the...
The Origins of Zionism
In this episode with a brief report from Gaza-based journalist Rami Almeghari, we talk to Rashid Khalidi about his book “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” to learn about the early history of the Zionist movement and...
