We often speak of change as something we do. A movement. A decision. A strategy. But what if true transformation begins somewhere else?Over the past four episodes, we’ve explored healing in many forms through the lens of design, liberation, art, style, belonging, and identity.🎙️ In this conversation, we invite you to reflect with us on:🔹 How healing shapes the way we live and lead🔹 Identity as an unfolding, not a fixed idea🔹 Why slowing down and feeling deeply is a radical act🔹 How environments—colors, spaces, conversations—can become sites of healingWe created this series to explore what design and transformation might look like when they’re rooted in compassion, honesty, and imagination..This episode, like the series, was never about finding answers, but about opening a space, listening in, and remembering that inner change can ripple outward into the systems we dare to reimagine.💛 With deep gratitude to everyone who’s joined us on this journey.#radicaltransformation #design #systemschange .Music by SoulProdMusic from Pixabay.Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/pecan-pie/sweetness-of-the-momentLicense code: Y7M1OELFBATIWJSD

What does it mean to decolonise design and research?How can design become an act of liberation, truth-telling, and collective healing rather than extraction or control?.💛 This is a tender, layered conversation. We invite you to listen gently, pause when needed, and hold yourself with care as you move through these reflections..In this episode of our Healing Series, we speak with Pause and Effect, a decolonial design and research studio working to regenerate ways of being, knowing, and doing.🎙️ In this conversation, we explore:🔹 Everyday practices of decolonisation beyond vocabulary🔹 Healing as relational and collective, rooted in grief, joy, and remembering🔹 How coloniality shapes knowledge creation and design🔹 Resisting assimilation and reclaiming ancestral wisdom🔹 Design’s role in reimagining systems for liberation🌸 About our guests:🌟 Sabrina MeherallySabrina (she/they) is the Founder and Change Alchemist at Pause and Effect. After more than a decade as a practicing designer, researcher, HR business partner and product manager, Sabrina poured her spirit and resources into building a brand that proudly lives into its values with integrity.Sabrina is the descendant of Sindhi Muslim Gujarati ancestors who, through forced migration, found home in East Africa and later, in so-called Canada. She brings their lessons of survival through collective care and communal responsibility into her vision for flourishing futures.Outside of Pause and Effect, Sabrina satiates her imagination through sci-fi. She helps cultivate and tend to the Moberly Medicine Garden, and is co-establishing a mutual aid fieldhouse called the Earthseed Collective, with the mission of increasing community climate resilience and food sovereignty through culturally-rooted programming.Above all things, Sabrina is an Auntie who cares deeply about the world her niblings will inherit.🌟 Sahibzada MayedSahibzada Mayed is a Change Alchemist at Pause and Effect, bringing an extensive background of community-based participatory design, emancipatory research, and trauma-centered practice.Mayed comes from a lineage of ancestors who tended to their native lands and waters as a primary form of sustenance and survival. Due to colonial violence and forced displacement, these relationships have been severed over multiple generations and cycles of loss.Their identity is shaped by their background as a Muslim immigrant of Persian, Afghan, Indian, and Pakistani heritage, as well as lived experiences of queerness, disability, and neurodivergence. Unravelling the work of colonization has led them through a process of reconciliation and remembrance.Mayed leads a fashion startup, Naranji, that is working toward disrupting the gender binary and reclaiming cultural fashion. As a multi-disciplinary creative, Mayed has produced multiple exhibitions and runway shows, with work featured across Japan, Pakistan, Thailand, and the United States.Mayed’s work and practice are rooted in principles of abolition and transformative justice. They wake up every day with a heartful commitment to be a better future ancestor.Together, Sabrina and Mayed invite us to move beyond extractive design and research practices, towards knowledge creation as remembrance, relationality, and liberation..#healing #decolonisation #liberation #design #research #knowledge #systemschange .Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/pecan-pie/sweetness-of-the-momentLicense code: 5PUTOKYZWIO99ABD.Music by Oleg Fedak from Pixabay.

In this third episode of our Healing Series, we explore the intricate relationship between style, identity, gender, self-expression, and mental health, and how personal style can serve as a powerful vehicle for healing, joy, and self-discovery.🎤 Inspired by the SareeNaSorry Funshop, a playful, safe space to explore the sari as a tool of empowerment created by Poppy Jaman, this conversation reflects on the life journeys of four women, and the ways they express and experience themselves through their bodies and their style.Our guests:🟣 Runa Begum Uddin – a mental health trainer, speaker, and facilitator whose lived experience with complex trauma shapes the way she supports others.🟣 Victoria Siegler – an advocate and co-trainer at Triangle Services UK, who brings sharp insight, humor, and perspective as a powerchair user navigating the gaze and assumptions of others.Together with our hosts Poppy Jaman and Arezoo Mohebpour, we talk about:How clothing can hold us, fit around us, and offer comfort or expressionWhat it means to feel “woman enough” and “human enough”The tension between invisibility and hyper-visibilityHow vanity can be not superficial, but essential to self-esteemHow small, everyday choices are part of our healing process🎧 This is a tender, lively conversation that redefines healing, not just as something internal, but as something woven into fabric, form, movement, and the courage to be seen.🎙️ Part of the Why Healing and Why It Matters series.#Healing #Style #Inclusion #SelfExpression .Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/pecan-pie/sweetness-of-the-momentLicense code: HESEZWLX0U3X9FPL

What if art wasn’t just a form of expression — but a way back to ourselves?In this special workshop-style episode, we explore the healing power of art and music as a personal and collective journey. Hosted on International Women’s Day 2025, this session celebrates creativity not just as beauty, but as medicine — and as activism.We invited our listeners into a live session with three incredible musicians and a circle of participants, blending sound, silence, reflection, and storytelling to ask:🌀 What is healing?🌬️ Where do we feel it in our bodies?🎶 How do music and art help us access the emotions we can’t always name?Whether you were with us live or not, you’re invited to create space for yourself as you watch or listen — to pause, reflect, and feel. You don’t need anything special. Just your presence, and maybe a piece of paper, a pen, and a little quiet.🎼 Featuring performances by:Beatrice Roberti – an engineer, violinist, and singer passionate about the power of words and human connection.Bousso Benussi Thioune – a writer, singer, and afro-feminist described by friends as a "gentle wrecking ball" always in motion and creation.Ash Orphan – a self-taught musician whose percussive guitar and voice lead us into emotional daydreaming.Facilitated by Poppy Jaman, Arezoo Mohebpour, and Khadidja Salamah Konate, this episode is both a reflection and an invitation. Because sometimes, the path to healing begins not with words — but with sound, sensation, and shared presence.✨ Even if you weren't there, we hope you'll find a moment for yourself here..#healing #healingmusic #healingjourney #healingsounds .Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/pecan-pie/sweetness-of-the-momentLicense code: X4LVCWVIGH8WJKTNMusic from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/yeti-music/gentle-breezeLicense code: LEPXFKWCW8N0BNXP

✨ We’re so proud to launch Episode 01 of our new podcast series on Healing, created together with our dear friend and global mental health ambassador Poppy Jaman.In this powerful opening conversation, we explore healing as a personal, communal, and societal journey, told through stories of growing up under systemic oppression, not belonging, and finding strength in movement, design, voice, and community.In this episode, we dive into:✅ Healing as a lifelong journey✅ The radical roots of self-care in civil rights activism✅ The deep link between mental health, identity, and belonging✅ Why emotions are essential guides ✅ How architecture, art, and design can hold space for healingThis is a conversation between three women of color, shaped by different lands and legacies, all asking the same question:"How do we become whole again? And what does wholeness look like in a world that might feel very broken?"Whether you're in architecture, urban planning, mental health, or walking your own healing path, this episode is for you..#Healing #MentalHealth #SelfCare #UrbanHealing .🔁 Feel free to share with anyone who needs to hear this..Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/brock-hewitt-stories-in-sound/ages-agoLicense code: Y0NW0XMK7ZV2QTKXMusic from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/pecan-pie/sweetness-of-the-momentLicense code: EOUXDORL78QQWCW5

In this final episode of our "Care Season," we dive into one of the most overlooked yet powerful aspects of urban and architectural design: its impact on our health and behavior. 🏙️💡Our guest, Georgia Gon, is an Assistant Professor based in the Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She has also been consulting for the WHO IPC Unit and Africa CDC. Behavioral change and evaluation design are cross-cutting areas of interest. Two areas of her research are improving infection prevention in the healthcare environment, and designing better interventions to improve the uptake of climate change adaptation and mitigation interventions. She is particularly focused on the health young women, mothers and newborns. She holds a PhD and MSc in Epidemiology from LSHTM and a BA in Human Sciences from Oxford University.Key Topics Discussed:🔹 How the built environment shapes our physical and mental health🔹 The role of urban design in preventing chronic diseases like obesity and cardiovascular issues🔹 Behavioral change strategies—what works and what doesn’t?🔹 Lessons from public health campaigns (e.g., smoking bans and COVID-19 hygiene norms)🔹 The design of healthcare spaces: How hospitals, clinics, and birth centers can better serve people🔹 Participatory design in medical facilities—why engaging patients and healthcare workers matters🔹 The challenges of maternal health infrastructure, especially in low-resource settings🔹 Why social norms drive our behaviors more than we realize🔹 The future of health-centered urban planning and what needs to change🚀 How can we design cities that keep us healthier? How do we make public health interventions more effective? Let’s explore these questions and more!🎧 Listen, learn, and join the conversation!💬 Comment below: How has urban design impacted your daily health choices?🔔 Subscribe for more episodes on urban design, sustainability, and human-centered spaces!#UrbanDesign #PublicHealth #BehaviorChange .Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/burbleLicense code: WIVEKY6D0OAJ6FRR