All The Small Things

Dr Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist, writer, speaker and a consultant on bias, anti-racism, social inclusion, power and privilege.

She is the author of three books, including SWAY: Unravelling Unconscious Bias and ‘Wish we knew what to say: Talking with children about race’, a manual for parents, carers and educators of all backgrounds and ethnicities to talk to children about race and racism.

In this episode, we focus on her latest book: (M)otherhood: On the choices of being a woman a hybrid memoir and scientific analysis of women’s fertility, and an urgent and timely examination of how political ideas of womanhood and motherhood are constructed. Pragya uses her own varied experiences and choices as a woman of South Asian heritage to examine the broader societal, historical and scientific factors that drive how we think and talk about motherhood.

It’s an extremely honest book, with Pragya interrogating themes including infertility, childbirth and reproductive justice, making a powerful and urgent argument for the need to tackle society's obsession with women's bodies and fertility, in a truly intersectional way.

Find Pragya: @DrPragyaAgarwal

Buy her book: bookshop.org

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @ATSTpodcast

This episode was produced by Venetia La Manna. It was edited by Nada Smiljanic. The artwork was designed by Alex Sedano and the music was composed by William Haxworth.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist from Uganda . She was the First Fridays For Future climate activist in her country and founder of the Rise up Climate Movement, which aims to amplify the voices of activists from Africa. 

Her brand new book “A Bigger Picture” is part of her fight to bring front line voices to the front page.

When it comes to speaking or writing about climate change, voices and stories of people of colour and from the Global South are often omitted, even though these communities often contribute the least to the problem and suffer its consequences the most. Vanessa shows that without addressing this important gap, without highlighting the real and immediate danger communities like hers and so many others face, we have no hope of making progress in the race to save our planet.

In A Bigger Picture she traces the links between climate crisis and anti-racism, feminism, education, economics and even extremist radicalization, as well as telling the inspiring personal story of how she found her voice and shows readers that no matter your age, location or skin colour, you can be an effective activist.

Find Vanessa: @vanessanakate1

Buy her book: bookshop.org/lists/all-the-small-things

Learn about the Vash green schools project

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @ATSTpodcast #allthesmallthings

This episode was produced by Venetia La Manna. It was edited by Nada Smiljanic. The artwork was designed by Alex Sedano and the music was composed by William Haxworth.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TW: death and grief.

Mo Gawdat is a writer and entrepreneur. After a 30 year career in tech and serving as Chief Business Officer at Google [X], Google's 'moonshot factory' of innovation, Mo has made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with some of the wisest people in the world.

In 2014, motivated by the tragic loss of his son, Ali, Mo began pouring his findings into his international bestselling book, Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy. His mission to help one billion people become happier, #OneBillionHappy, is his moonshot attempt to honor Ali by spreading the message that happiness can be learned and shared.

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His latest book is Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World, a blueprint to safeguard humanity's coexistence with future technology. Technology is putting our humanity at risk to an unprecedented degree. This book is not for engineers who write the code or the policy makers who claim they can regulate it. This is a book for you. Because, believe it or not, you are the only one that can fix it. It’s a book about kindness and compassion and love and how ultimately, they are what will save us.

Find Mo: @mo_gawdat

Buy his book: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/all-the-small-things

Find his app: appii.app

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @atstpodcast

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Kaspersky. Download their free mindfulness course on digital stress and smartphone addiction cyberspa.kaspersky.com

This episode was co-produced by Venetia La Manna and Holly Falconer. It was edited by Nada Smiljanic. The artwork was designed by Alex Sedano and the music was composed by William Haxworth.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chloe Asaam is a designer, researcher, community organiser and Program/Operations Manager for The OR Foundation.

The OR Foundation is an incredible charity and campaign who are raising awareness about the fashion waste crisis, specifically in Ghana’s capital Accra, where 15 million used garments pour into the area every week from the UK, Europe, North America and Australia, flooding the city’s sprawling clothing market.

The OR (which stands for choice) work at the intersection of environmental justice, education and fashion development, our mission is to identify and manifest alternatives to the dominant model of fashion – alternatives that bring forth ecological prosperity, as opposed to destruction, and that inspire citizens to form a relationship with fashion that extends beyond their role as consumer. 

They want to catalyse a justice-led circular economy. At every level their initiatives are founded on the belief that Justice within the violent yet beautiful world we share begins with Reckoning, Recovery and Reparations.

With a background in Fashion Design, Chloe sees the negative impact of fast fashion’s thoughtless overproduction and she is on a mission to do something about it. Chloe’s work with The OR Foundation builds on her personal advocacy and gives her the space to have a tangible impact on the people working within the Kantamanto ecosystem, specifically the kayayei (female head porters).

Learn more about the work of The OR Foundation

Support their work: https://theor.org/donate

Find Chloe: @chloe_asaam

Find The OR Foundation: @TheORisPresent

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @atstpodcast

This episode was produced by Venetia La Manna and edited by Nada Smiljanic. The music was composed by William Haxworth and the artwork was designed by Alex Sedano.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tessa Khan is an international climate change and human rights lawyer, campaigner and strategist.

She is the founder and director of Uplift, a new organisation helping to move the UK towards a fossil fuel-free future. They strategically resource, connect, and elevate ideas and voices to set in motion a just transition away from fossil fuel production that is in proportion with the scale of the climate crisis. Before this role, she co-founded and is co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, a project of the Urgenda Foundation, which supports groundbreaking strategic climate litigation around the world. 

She has spent more than fifteen years supporting grassroots, regional and international movements for justice and has served as an expert advisor to UN human rights bodies and national governments, while working in Thailand, Egypt, India, the US, the Netherlands and Australia. Tessa is a trustee of Global Greengrants Fund UK and a member of the Steering Committee of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. 

Her writing has been published in international media outlets and academic publications, and she has been invited to speak at the United Nations and events convened by The Economist, Wall Street Journal and TEDx. In 2019, Tessa was named by TIME magazine as one of fifteen women leading the fight against climate change. She is also an awardee of the Climate Breakthrough Project.

If you’re UK based, you should know that the government has spent 4 BILLION propping up the oil and gas industry since we signed the Pairs Agreement in 2016. At the end of October 2021, The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP2 6will be taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. Boris Johnson has referred to this as the turning point for humanity, yet our government is spending billions propping up the oil and gas industry, which is directly causing the overheating and destruction of our planet.

Actions and links for this episode

Learn more about the work of Uplift.

The Government are set to approve the climate-wrecking Cambo oil field later this year. If we want a liveable climate, we can’t allow any new oil and gas extraction. To learn more and take action please head to: stopcambo.org.uk/take-action

Write to your local MP to ask that they take action at COP26 and speak up against fossil fuels

Check out the PaidToPollute campaign

Check out podcast guest Daze Aghaji's campaign to sue the government for failing to tackle climate change: crowdjustice.com/case/carbon-budgets/

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @atstpodcast

This episode was co-produced by Venetia La Manna and Holly Falconer and edited by Nada Smiljanic. The music was composed by William Haxworth and the artwork was designed by Alex Sedano.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

[CW: sexual assault] Gina Martin is a campaigner, speaker and writer, best known for founding and running the national campaign to make upskirting illegal and changing English and Welsh law by creating the Voyeurism Act. Three other countries have since followed suit. In 2020, alongside Black plus size model Nyome Nicholas Williams and photographer Alex Cameron, Gina helped change Instagram’s Nudity policy, which previously censored larger Black women’s bodies. 

Gina’s first book Be The Change, is a practical guide for activists starting out. She’s also an ambassador UN Women UK and advocates for regular people creating change in their communities, with a specific focus on young people, as you’ll hear in this episode.

We also talk about Gina’s campaigning, touching on the less glamorous side that doesn’t make into mainstream media, the lessons she’s learned and the depths of what she’s been through.

Buy Gina's book here

Watch her TEDx Talk here

Find Gina: @GinaMartin

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @atstpodcast

This episode was co-produced by Venetia La Manna and Holly Falconer and edited by Nada Smiljanic. The music was composed by William Haxworth and the artwork was designed by Alex Sedano.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hassan Akkad is a photographer, filmmaker and activist. He came to the UK in 2015 after fleeing Damascus after he was tortured by Assad's regime. He documented his journey in the BAFTA award winning documentary “Exodus: Our Journey to Europe and later caught public attention again when he applied to be a cleaner at his local hospital at the start of the COVID 19 pandemic. During his time on the COVID ward, Hassan shared images of his fellow cleaners, porters and cooks on his social media which went viral. Then, when Hassan found out that porters and cleaners working for the NHS would not be protected through the government's NHS bereavement scheme, he was outraged and his campaign to include those people in the scheme directly led to the second notorious government U-turn of 2020. 

Hassan’s memoir “Hope Not Fear: Finding My Way from Refugee to Filmmaker to NHS Hospital Cleaner and Activist” was released in September 2021. It’s a searingly honest and heartbreaking account of his journey and his unparalleled compassion, kindness and advocacy. Hassan shows us that standing together and uniting in kindness and love is the single most important message of our time.

Order Hassan’s book here

Find Hassan on Instagram: @HassanAkkad and twitter @Hassan_Akkad

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @atstpodcast

Support Choose Love / Help Refugees: helprefugees.org/

This episode was co-produced by Venetia La Manna and Holly Falconer. It was edited by Nada Smiljanic. The music was composed by William Haxworth and the artwork was designed by Alex Sedano.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to series 3!

Aja Barber is a writer, stylist and consultant whose work deals with the intersections of sustainability and the fashion landscape, building heavily on ideas behind privilege, wealth inequality, racism, feminism and colonialism.

Her brand new debut book “Consumed: The need for collective change; colonialism, climate change & consumerism”, is a blazing polemic against both the exploitation and injustice of the fashion industry and the cynical manipulation of consumer culture as a whole. It’s divided into one learning section and one unlearning section, so by the end, you’ll understand why fashion is exploitative, how it’s causing a humanitarian crisis and contributing to climate breakdown and you’ll feel equipped to be a better consumer and, fundamentally, a more active citizen. 

Order Aja's book here

Find Aja: @ajabarber

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @atstpodcast

This episode was produced by Venetia La Manna and edited by Nada Smiljanic. The music was composed by William Haxworth and the artwork was designed by Alex Sedano.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachel Ama (she/her) is a cookery author and YouTuber with over half a million subscribers. A new Mum, Rachel has spent the last year in London, writing her most accessible and delicious book yet “One Pot, Three Ways: Save Time With Vibrant, Versatile, Vegan Recipes.” The recipes revolve around one main centrepiece dish that makes flavour-packed vegetables the worthy hero of every meal. With over 80 brand new recipes inspired by her Caribbean and African roots, Rachel offers three creative and flavoursome ways to serve and use each one-pot recipe. It is an absolute delight, just like Rach.

In this episode, we discuss her birth story, relationship with her mum, parenting style, thoughts on the vegan community, her ambition to make plant based food and cooking accessible for everyone and much more.

I use strong language more than a few times in this episode (I think it was due to the excitement of being reunited with my pal), so please bear that in mind if you're listening with people who might take offence.

Find Rachel: @RachelAma_

Pre-order her book: https://bit.ly/3wVGlVi

Find me: @venetialamanna

Find the show: @ATSTpodcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jazmin Sawyers (she/her) is a professional long jumper, former bobsledder and singer-songwriter from Stoke. A personal philosophy to say "yes" to as much as possible has taken her to the final of the Rio Olympic Games, Will.I.Am's team on The Voice UK and hosting the red carpet at BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. She is the current British long jump champion and is taking part in the Olympics in Japan this month.

Find Jaz on Instagram: @JazminSawyers

Find me @VenetiaLaManna and follow the show @ATSTpodcast.

This podcast was edited and produced by Venetia La Manna and co-produced by Holly Falconer. The artwork was designed by Alex Sedano and the music was composed by William Haxworth.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.