Breaking the Walls of a Stutter with Mutalaathem Founder Saad Al-Munajem

About this episode

Saad Al-Munajem shares his journey of overcoming a stutter and founding a nonprofit for Arabic-speaking individuals who stutter.

As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, Saad Al-Munajem learned how to build a wall around himself. After being laughed at while trying to read aloud in class, he spent years hiding his stutter — avoiding speaking, overthinking every interaction, and quietly carrying the fear of being heard. But what happens when someone decides to stop hiding? In this episode of Proud Stutter, Saad shares the moments that slowly changed his relationship to his voice and led him to found Mutalaathem, a nonprofit creating community for Arabic-speaking people who stutter across the Middle East and North Africa. This is a conversation about fear, identity, disclosure, and the long process of tearing down the walls we build to protect ourselves. In this episode Article in Arab News Proud Stutter (Short Film on YouTube) ----- Big thanks to Proud Stutter's recurring supporters: Jennifer Bolen, Jerry Slaff, Josh Compton, Pablo Meza, Alexandra Mosby, Ingo Helbig, Jonathan Reiss, Jason Smith, Paige McGill, Wayne Engebretson, Swathy Manavalan, and Martha Horrocks. If you can become a monthly donor at $10 or more, we’ll give you access to ad-free episodes and bonus Proud Stutter+ content as a token of our…

People in this episode

Host: Maya Chupkov

Guest: Saad Al-Munajem

Topics covered

• stuttering
• identity
• community
• fear
• self-acceptance

Keywords

• stutter
• Saudi Arabia
• Mutalaathem
• community
• fear
• identity
• self-improvement

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mutalaathem, Independent Arts & Media

Books & works: Article in Arab News, Proud Stutter (Short Film on YouTube)

Places: Saudi Arabia

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