Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Big Impact Astronomy, where we explore stories of how the stars are changing lives and connecting communities around the world. From stargazing under war torn skies to bringing science education to isolated communities, we uncover the incredible impact of astronomy beyond the observatory.
This episode of Big Impact Astronomy is brought to you by Primalucha Labs.
Prima Lucha Labs makes space exploration accessible for all and empowers communities worldwide through innovative educational astronomy solutions.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Hello everyone, I'm Mike Simmons, the founder of Astronomy for Equity and welcome to the Big Impact Astronomy podcast. Today we have Atiya Alhassadi from Libya. He is an astrophysicist. He's co founder of Roya for Astronomy and Space Applications, an NGO in Libya. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics and he has led astronomy education across Libya through lectures, workshops, public stargazing events. He's a TEDx speaker and a STEM blogger.
And Atiyeh is dedicated to making space science accessible and inspiring curiosity about the universe.
So Atia, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:30] Speaker C: It's my pleasure to be here.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Well, you're doing great work in Libya and I'm glad to be able to highlight it and show people what's happening. And especially since you know, Libya has undergone a lot of trouble in recent years and it's still not really the most stable. Tell us what citizens of Libya have been dealing with and especially about the students that growing up under these circumstances.
[00:01:57] Speaker C: Yeah, so the main problem as you said after the revolution, there's many like guns and like armed activities with many armed groups because Libya is. It's a huge country middle and Africa and big Sahara and like I would say million and 700,000 kilometers square. So it's a huge, huge country. With, with that situation it's really hard to student to get more hope about their futures.
And this is one of one of the problems especially what happened in the city. They use schools as like costing that displaced people.
That's happened in many cities in, in Libya with, with few numbers at the schools. Huge like 40, 40, sometimes 50 in just one class in a three or four months they could, they. They brush, they press the, the I would say the academic year just for three or four hours. So they give them lack of, of quality of educations in Libya and there's many even this year, I would say three or four months for school that's not even stable. There's like casting off because some clashes happen in the, in the Cities also from 2020 to 2020 to that Kovit also has his touch in that in the school and the student Also tell.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Me why astronomy and space science? What. How is this helpful in times like this to the students especially?
[00:04:01] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say we found this accidentally because we were working in Libya. We just. We were very young and we tried to do anything about our passion, like, let's say in astronomy. So like some students and youth trying to do some astronomy activities and find out how the activities affect many people in. In good way. So we try to build on these activities because in. In.
I remember in 2014 when ISIS controlled many cities in.
In Libyan and we did some astronomy activities and many students join us because at that time there is not many activities in the cities. But when we do swift like few minutes during some astronomy activities, many students, many youth join us. And we found out we protect these youth from joining the ISIS group.
So this is this building and we were working in many cities in Libya. Even at the civil war in Libya between many east and west armed groups, and we were working in different cities. Even the cities have civil war between them.
We just doing astronomy activities. But this is also like peace building.
So we found out by chance, I would say that.
And in recent years we tried to build projects and programs on this in this concept, which we are not just STEM activities, but also there's many concepts behind it, like this building and work team. And we try to create leaders in STEM activities because we cannot do activities without some soft skills, some leadership skills. So we try to enhance this environment not just for astronomy activities, but also to peace building and empower women and girls in the STEM fields. And of course.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: So I will note that you are not in Benghazi now that you are in Derna, much smaller town and your hometown. And I have to mention how profoundly sad I am about what happened in Derna. I think that viewers may remember that there were floods and a dam broke, and Derna was a city that was flooded with a large part of the city and population washed away, including your family members who were there in fact for your sister's wedding. And this turned into from a joyous occasion to a disaster. So I'm very sorry about what happened then and I know this is something your yourself, your family or your city will not recover from completely. So sorry to hear that. And this could explain, of course, the lack of infrastructure that we have there and the Internet not being that great since so much damage was done. But it's one more example of some of the things that can happen in places that don't have the same infrastructure that we're used to in the developed World and difficult to recover from. So astronomy can give hope and as you say, build leadership, the soft skills and so on. Let's talk about then some of the things that Raya has done. And this is World space week in 2022. And you know, you wouldn't know from looking at this in the smiling face of the girl there that there were difficulties like this. This is what we see when we have astronomy programs like this in places that have difficulties. And there's an awful lot of stuff here. And this is not something we always, we. We see that often in the United States. Family activities and things like that here. Can you tell us something about what you do here?
[00:08:45] Speaker C: Yeah, even, even the girl like hold that our planet upside upside down. But you know that that space.
The. The space itself hasn't that direction. But this is kind of school activities. It's common thing in Libya with the. When the school doing some activities in school and the student came out to the street taking like a tour in public holding their like minicraft things to show the people in the public what what they have done in the. In the school. So. So yeah it was the activities that we have done in a Tripoli with the student is kind of showing off of the student. It's common thing in Libya. I don't know in other countries in the world. But this is kind of when the student have done any activities with handicraft, they taken a tour in public close to the the schools to show people what they have done.
And that time we.
We have agreement with. With the school to do like astronomy handcrafts. You can see the stars and planets and in like solar system behind and some students holding the pictures in it. You can see the families joining them. So. So it's this kind of public activity.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: And this not in public. This is a common thing water rockets done in many places around the world. But this is at a special camp as I mentioned.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: Yeah, we, we. We. We have done the space space camp first. Libyan Space camp in. In Libya. And we did that in. In the city of Surinaika. I would say, I would mention why. Why it's it's a symbol by the way. It's Zeus Timbo and we did that in the middle of Zeus symbol. But this is kind of activities we. We did about this rocket science. The first is it's rocket science when we're talking about something hard.
So we try to symbolize that. It's like yeah, it's rocket science and it's.
I know it's not that easy to Send people outside the space. But kind of said as the astronomy as a science as an academic field is not that hard for these activities. Cyrenaica is the city where the Artistinus was born. And Artistinus is a Greek site born in Cyrenaica and Libya who the first man who measured the circumference of the Earth was born here in this city in Libya. We tried to try to connect between the present and the future to the bust Libya. And yeah we said that the idea it was like that great science born in. In this city. And we may start in your like scientific journey from that. From this. From this site.
So this is what the message that we try to deliver at that time. Wonderful.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Here you've got a good facility. You're able to take around a mobile planetarium and you use this to educate people and give them a chance to see what the sky is like. This is for people in the big cities who don't. Don't see the night sky very well.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Yeah, of course. And the. The one I think Libya in Benghazi, in Tripoli. The 17s even the end of 19s they were. There were like big planetarium in Benghazi in Tripoli and where the students used to go.
The new generation has no idea about what the planetarium is.
And one thing that very very. Remember that time when we set the platerium and switching on.
Many of adults join us because they remember when they were students and they went to the school trip to materials in Tripoli. So it's supposed to be full of like student. But that time it was full of families which is to me this was a good thing. How astronomy link even the families for parents when they. Of course. Because what I believe is as a child you have something from the sky because sky is. Is something something incredible. And you have passion about any stars and moon. And.
But after growing up some many people change their passion about many things.
So when the people see the sky they remember the child that was has passion about what's going on up there. So it was great opportunity for even to parents in that time to to discuss about their kids passion about the sky. You can engage them to to be part of the space industry all of the time of decision talking about the space industry and have discussion about the parents more than describe what's going on.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: That's terrific. And and you mentioned that there used to be planetariums in the big cities. What happened to those one of them.
[00:14:44] Speaker C: And I think in Tripoli taken from the other authorities. I think this is.
It is library right now and one here, the one here in Benghazi. It was destroyed in that war in Benghazi in 2014, but it was closed before that like 10 years before.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: That's a shame.
So many things happen during the war, of course, that you have no control over.
Well to other things that you do now. Here is a photo here. And Libya is taking part in a program that we're just starting, Bright Futures, which is a global STEM program using sunlight alone to encourage STEM education, to teach STEM education with lessons and so on to, to use in places where there are no other facilities.
These are eclipse glasses. The program is not about eclipses. It's about the sun and sunlight and a continuous program for stem.
These of course are not the students, but these classes can be used for public outreach and so on. What is happening here?
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Yeah, we were in one of the forests in Green Mountain in Libya. We have like, we have campaign there and we try to take advantage of gathering many college students and many NGO members in Libya to talk about the sun and the solar system and the solar benefits. And they were like refugees from Sudan that Sudan right now suffering with many difficulties, civil war. And so many of the refugees moved to Libya and they were cleaners working in. In many fields. But they were in the picture tooth cleaners. It was a bunch of them and, and really enjoying the, the decision there. And they have many, they have many questions about the sun. And one of the. The refugees, after the session he told me he was always hate the sun because he had to cross the Sahara displacing Sudan from to. To Libya. So has to hate. He used to hate the sun.
But other session he said like this is the first time I saw. I see the sun in different concepts.
And he asked me if they have, if they. If I have extra glasses to. To his kids and then give them. And I ask anyone if they have kids I can give you glasses and tell them what the activities that we have done right now, this is one of them. The moment that you, you realize how the astronomy going to change the people concepts of a life.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: And that's, you know, the basis of this program really.
I've distributed tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of eclipse glasses like this to places around the world for eclipses and so on. But you look through the glasses and it's amazing to see the sun for the first time. It's eclipse. Kind of amazing to think nobody's seen the sun. It's there all the time, but we don't look at it.
So it really is A big deal for people when they do this. But then the glasses are set aside. This program we're doing is going to keep using them for all different sciences. Studying sunlight and moving on different sciences. So now I have to note that these are refugees. You're talking about refugees also within Libya escaping the war and all the difficulties you have there. But Sudan is worse and people are finding safe haven in Libya, coming from Sudan, having to cross the Sahara Desert to get there.
So Libya by comparison is a good place.
So this is something I emphasize because people don't realize how difficult it is in many places around the world. You know, people that. That have it good here. We see these things on the news, but this is personal. It's. It's different.
So I'm glad to be able to see that. Now one of the things that we did. Now tell. Tell us about this. This is in a. A middle school. This, this represents several things that you've done.
Yeah.
[00:19:33] Speaker C: This is an astronomical collapse in Libya. And this is one of the. The club that. That we have in. In schools and they called themselves the astronomy scientists. And if you. If. If you know in. In. In Arabic language we. We have certain grammar for girls and I would say male and female concepts.
So they call themselves like female space, female science. And this is the what the literally translation of the. Of English and as our strategy in astronomical clubs because we. We do many indoor activities to include as much as we can girls schools because it's hard to. To girls sometimes to participate in outdoor activities.
So we try to give them more activities to balance between outdoor activities and indoor activities in.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: In.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: In gender balance participation.
So this is one of the lectures. This is the library of the school.
And this is one of the workshop that we.
We have done in Tripoli. And this is the year after the war happened in Tripoli in middle school. And we tried to get access to school that were places in the middle of the clashes in the war.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: So many. Of course there are many Muslim countries. Some are very strict with women, others not. But the countries I've been to also it depends on where in the big cities there's more freedom for the women and in the small towns less so. But that's true everywhere. The cultures are different in the small towns and the bigger cities.
So here the parents may not want the girls out at night or out on the streets unsupervised.
These are younger girls so you know, they'll be more strict but also for safety because it's not necessarily safe in a lot of places. I know in Libya. So you concentrate on that, which is wonderful. The leaders, if they're. If they happen to be men in your culture, then for now, to be able to work towards that. Gender equity is really fabulous. And these girls, of course, are very interested in that. So we did something in astronomy for equity to help with that.
This is one of those clubs, and this was actually something that we used in a crowdfunding campaign, and we raised funds for telescopes for these astronomy clubs and people responded very, very well. The. The American people were very generous and they funded this very quickly.
It took a very long time to get the telescope. That's the hard part. We can do anything. On my heart, getting the telescopes to other countries can be really difficult. These went by sea because it's too expensive to go by air and took three or four months to get there.
And I want to point out to people that this is necessary because there aren't ways to get telescopes. Even if you have the money, you frequently don't have a way of getting a telescope. And if you, if you were able to order it and it gets sent in from Amazon in Europe or something like that, it won't get through customs. It's that somebody may steal it. They'll charge. This happens all the time. They. They charge as much as the product is worth to let it go through.
And it's. It's just impossible. So here is a girl that I remember. We have a video clip of this on the campaign.
And she was fabulous. She wants to be an astronaut, and I hope that she has that chance.
So this is just one of many of them. What. Where were the different. The schools that we sent the telescopes to?
[00:24:09] Speaker C: So, yeah, first of all, we start with the Tripoli, because it was that time, it was the ending of the civil war happening in Tripoli. So we, we tried to use all the telescopes in the Tripoli schools, especially in the area neighborhoods that had affected by the war. You can see that even the mask, because this is the 20, 20 year and previous picture right now, the five telescopes distributed between Tripoli, Benghazi, India and Darna, of course, after the flood.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: And so this is one of them with a lecture there. I hope they could take the telescope outside and use it there. It's not a display piece, but I. But I know you do.
And in fact, one of the telescopes in use here, or maybe two of them, it looks like. Actually.
[00:25:06] Speaker C: Yeah, this is parts of outdoor activities, especially just monitoring them. It's not observation of the moon. We try to get some planets like Saturn or Jupiter, but it's hard to. To. To do the observation close to the big cities. So we have to travel far away from.
From the lights.
And this is one of the activities we've done in I think. Yeah. In Green Mountains in Libya. And our idea is not doing decision but also. Also to describe the place, the history of the place, why we have decision especially in the place where the importance of the place. Because we willing that with the environment, with the history.
So we try to.
I would say our sessions try to be more.
More rich of the concept in the history and the science. And it's not just the observation.
So this is our strategy and that with this session especially is kind of about the forest. Because forest in Libya we have the desertation right now and we have few forests. So try to get more awareness about that, about the first forest and how you can get that people attention about it.
Trying to as well like astronomy session.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: And that's an important thing too. Desertification is a part of climate change. And I understand that you've moved into doing quite a bit about climate change since the disaster in Derna.
Things are changing in Libya as they are everyplace else.
And climate change is actually part of what we will be teaching about.
With the sunglasses when we look at the sun, the lessons will be about where our energy comes from, which is all the sun. But that relates to how it generates the ocean currents and how that's changing and the different things on Earth as far as energy transfer and so on. So people understand that. So that's something you are focusing on now as well. You're not abandoning astronomy. It's all part of the same thing. We are a planet in the solar system.
But that's an important subject you're doing now. I understand.
[00:28:04] Speaker C: Yes, we connected with the space applications because the climate change.
Monitoring the climate change through satellite program.
And this is kind of what we thinking to work in in two years.
Because right now we have like technology to build a cube satellites that can.
University students can build it and coding in it and to mentor that the climate change in Libya. Not a national project, but at least kind of initiatives starting with the universities. Because I believe that we have many brilliant students that can handle that project.
And this is how we link the climate change with. With the astronomy activities.
We try to.
To provide the space applications technology.
And in climate change, I would say climate resilience national even that adaptation nationals plan in governmental level and also in education and academic level.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: And of course astronomy and space science. Well in the United States these are like two different Things, but they're not really. We're exploring space in different ways from the ground and going to space to look back at Earth.
And in most of the world, astronomy and space science are just part of the same thing, but introducing science and technology, engineering and math and as well as the sciences.
The question is, how do you do that? How do you excite students in Astronomy, of course, is what we use around the world for that.
I have worked with some of your students in Benghazi and they this was a remote observing program and yes, there were brilliant and there's one who's the leader in particular who stood out. And they're, they're part of the astronomy club there. But I don't think a single one of them was studying astronomy.
They were all in, mostly in it.
Some, I'm sure, will go into engineering fields and so on. They won't become astronomers, but it is something that inspires them. And this gave them the opportunity to do a research project, something they will need to learn. Now, where they go after their bachelor's degree at the University of Mangazi, if they stay to study in Libya, a lot of places they can't study what they want to and have to leave the country. So it's very difficult. And that's at least they are in the pipeline. They're there and hoping to get a chance to study here in the US or in Europe or something. Many of them as well.
I was asked to meet with the students there and I don't remember where this is, but it was arranged by Uthea and one of the schools there that wanted to hear from me. Now they don't get a lot of opportunities to meet people from outside, of course, at these places. So I did a presentation, I think, and talked to them. And it looks like this is a girl's school as well.
But what was even better, and I don't have a picture of her on screen with me here, was when you asked if I could bring an astronaut and you told me that the last astronaut that Libyans met in the country, you're a Gagarin and that's like 50, 60 years ago.
And you wanted in particular a female, if possible. So I asked Nicole Stott, five time NASA astronaut, also an artist. She's standing in front of a painting that she did of an object she took a picture of from space. But the paintings are really more evocative and really great. She is an engineer by training, an astronaut and an artist and very inspiring, wonderful person. So that was an opportunity especially for the girls. You know what, what was that like for them? What were the responses and the reactions? What kind of an impact might that have had?
[00:32:41] Speaker C: And thank you so much for for this opportunity because we we you lead this opportunity to to happen in Tripoli with the schools. The idea is, is to give them a real example about the human.
He was inspiring in space and astronomy. And after that she have been a great astronaut.
And because as you mentioned that there is like a frag between the science like astronomy as a science and astronomy as a industry.
Libya we wouldn't discuss with, we were discussing with the student. We felt that being astronaut or being astronomy astronomer is kind of a dream or something is far away from from Libyan Libyan side. And and in this session we try to deliver the message. It's not far away, it's really close.
This is real example and it's, it's kind of just guidelines to to follow and you can achieve your your dream to be astronomer or be an astronaut. So this is the message that we we. We try to deliver decision to close up between between the the Libyan student and the space industry.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: It's important and you can set your your sights high and, and most of the time you may not end up where you plan to be. Not because you failed in some way, but because you find another path, something else that interests you.
A lot of people who are in astronomy came in through other other ways. Astronomers go into other things. So we learn as we go and we find our own path. It's just important to stay on the path to have your sight set on something whether it's to be an astronaut or anything else. So and then keep moving on that path wherever wherever it ends up.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: Yeah, that student. Most most of the girls students and we we try to get to women astronaut astronaut to, to show them as, as a. As I said, like real example of. Of astronauts.
Most of the students that time before the session they were interesting in the space in astronomy. After the session, after the session, I remember like many students girls at that time, they said to their supervisors, I want to be like.
So this is whole transaction from interesting to be like like her astronaut and flowing in space. So yeah, it was really successful.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's important to have role models, something to aim for.
Even in the case of Nicole, she trained as an engineer and she was an engineer at NASA.
And after working there for a while, she didn't plan on being an astronaut. But after working there for a while and working with the astronauts, she said yeah, I can do that. So she applied and she eventually Got in and flew to space.
She wasn't planning on being an astronaut. She was something else.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember the, the airplane story.
She mentioned that she. She saw, she. When she, she was kids she saw the airplane and she asked herself how this materials flying and she was interesting in aerospace engineering and. Yeah.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: And she's gone in to do many other things.
[00:36:45] Speaker C: So.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
After being an astronaut too. So. And especially being an inspiration for girls and, and. And women. I was very much looking forward to coming to Libya a couple years ago when you were planning a big astronomy festival, the first one, and there were sponsors and I was inviting people. I had some really great people lined up that would be inspirational for people that had a chance to go. That was before the disaster in Dirna which changed everything.
[00:37:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
But about the festival, like a few weeks ago I was talking one of the minister in. In Libya, he was here in Indira and I talked to him about the project, about the festival. He was optimistic about the Libyan government right now really interested in a project and any festivals or any. Any events happening there to show the world what they have done in rehabilitation.
And I think it's going to be great opportunity to them especially in scientific festival.
I send them the proposal and I'm waiting for their response.
They said we're going to do it, but we try about the budget, if they fit with our governmental budget or not. But I'm very optimistic.
I'm just waiting for the green light from this side to get connection with you again about the festival. Because right now I took this festival very personal because it's gonna happen here in my city. And let's see what's the next step. But I'm very optimistic at this time to do that the festival here in Darna. Maybe. I don't know, maybe in few months later.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: I would really look forward to that. Going to a place that has had such a terrible disaster with so many people lost is really difficult, but it's even more important.
[00:39:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: And in November I went with a few other people to Ukraine for example, where we had provided telescopes for astronomy students.
And this was very important to them to have the chance to look to the sky and also to meet people from, from outside who encourage them. Because suddenly when you're on a path and it's completely disrupted by war or natural disaster or something, the future suddenly disappears and you don't know where it's going to go. And this was a really important thing for those students and I think it will be for the. The people in DNA. So I would Very much welcome the opportunity to visit there and I'm ready to, to bring along people who would really be inspiration for, for the people there and the students there especially.
[00:40:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I, I still remember our feelings in the that time the flood happened.
We were like very, very disappointed about our cities. Our cities destroyed.
No one knows about the future. We've like we said like Darna, the city is gone. It's going to be no future or no the area maybe turns to the destroyed city.
And right now we were like very happy. If anything happening in, in there now, right now in July there is like football championship happening, mini football African championship happening in in Dirna and many African teams with their fans gonna be here in Darna. So just in two years it's kind of like raising it, the city raised again and this is the message that we, we want to, to deliver from the destroyed city to city of festival scientific and sport culture events.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: That's wonderful Darna rising again from the floodwaters.
You know, keep in touch, let me know how it goes. If the whole festival doesn't happen, if I can come with some people and that would make a difference. I will absolutely do that.
I, I love the so you, you are sitting in front of a great poster there. Tell us what this is, what, what, what that represents.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: So yeah, this is one of the poster of the coding workshops kind of robotic building and programming.
So we, we, we teach student in many cities in Libya. This time we're in Tajora cities, the city close to the tripoli.
This was 20 students from Tajura City learning about that coding and programming of that. Because there's many right now the world holding many, many robotic competitions between students and our, our, our, our team like robotic team have competition in, in U.S.
i think the end of this year.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Well I love it. An astronaut taking part in a hackathon in space with the planet behind him.
Nothing better than that. So ati, I want to thank you for taking the time to join us here.
We've had some technical difficulties, but we can't always have a great connection from a lot of places around the earth and it's just part of it. And it's a demonstration of why we're using astronomy to try and improve places to get students inspired to go into science, technology and engineering and maths to improve the future of the country. And Libby is doing a great job in that. And you and the others at Roya are doing fabulous work and I'm very proud to have been able to support that. And I look forward to supporting it more in the future.
[00:43:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for for this interview. I really enjoyed it and talking about the activities or activities in in Libya and no matter no matter what the situation that is, but there is always hope and the sky gave us this inspiration.
So astronomy is it's really really important factor in different places even that in hard situations over the world.
And I would say thank thank you so much for for your offers because you always support ROYA and astronomy initiatives around the world and hopefully anyone get this get interview get inspiring maybe in our experience and hopefully they're they'll enjoy this interview.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Inshallah.
[00:44:35] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: So thank you Tia. I hope to see you in Libya.
[00:44:42] Speaker C: My pleasure.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: This has been another episode of Big Impact Astronomy. I'm your host, Mike Simmons. Jacob Sager is our technical producer. Our audio engineer is Ali Pelfrey. Big Impact Astronomy is produced by Astronomy for Equity, bringing astronomy to unserved communities worldwide. This episode of Big Impact Astronomy was brought to you by Primalucha Labs. Primalucha Labs makes space exploration accessible for all and empowers communities worldwide through innovative educational astronomy solutions.
Learn more about Astronomy for Equity, including how you can Support us at astro. The number4equity.org.
