Flavie Halais is a freelance journalist and creative strategist based in Montreal, Canada. She has reported internationally for various outlets including The Guardian, Le Monde Afrique, Jeune Afrique, The Correspondent and Devex. She also consults on brand and narrative strategy for organizations, and writes a weekly newsletter, Flavie Friday.
Flavie’s work investigates how global identities express themselves through politics and culture. She has written at length about informal settlements, foreign aid, migration, cities and poverty. Her multiplatform project Refugee Economics, produced in collaboration with the European Journalism Centre, looked at the economic dimension of refugee crises in East Africa. Previous assignments have taken her to Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Haiti, Colombia, Greece and Brazil.
Flavie also advises organizations on various aspects of business intelligence, branding, content and editorial through her creative studio. Born and raised in France, she writes in English and French, and is fluent in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.
Selected publications
Los refugiados urbanos quedan fuera de la ayuda internacional
— ‘They call him the millionaire’: the refugee who turned his camp into a business empire — Looking to escape Trumpism in Canada? Think again — Au Kenya, des réfugiés deviennent entrepreneurs et parfois… millionnaires —
More than half the world’s refugees live in urban areas. Here’s what that means for cities — Can we get smarter at preventing people from fleeing?
Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya, 2016