It's a Long Story

Raised between Darwin and his ancestral home of Gabagaba in Papua New Guinea, Airileke Ingram was drumming from a young age. His grandfather taught him traditional techniques, igniting a love for percussion that led to a world tour with the Australian Youth Orchestra. Since then, Airileke has played with some of our most prominent Indigenous musicians, soundtracked a Hollywood film and scored an ARIA nomination. But it’s his passion for making community through music that really drives Airileke. His latest collaboration is Sorong Samarai, featuring West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda. It brings together a talented mix of musicians from across Oceania, and is a rallying cry for freedom for West Papuans, sharing the unifying message ‘One people, one soul, one destiny’.

This episode of It's a Long Story is hosted by Emily Nicol.

Tamika Mallory has been protesting pretty much her entire life. From joining Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network at the age of 15 to working with the Obama administration on gun control legislation. As the national co-chair of the Women's March on Washington, Tamika proved that women are at the centre of the resistance against the Trump presidency. The Women's March was the largest single-day protest in US history and worldwide participation was estimated at being over 5 million. The movement sent a bold message to the new US government on its very first day in office that women's rights are indeed human rights.

This episode of It's a Long Story is hosted by Marc Fennell.

Author, politician, and former international civil servant, Shashi Tharoor is a man of many talents. He spent nearly 29 years at the United Nations as a peacekeeper and refugee worker culminating as undersecretary general. He's published 16 books, won numerous literary awards and was named by the 1998 World Economic Forum in Davos as a Global Leader of Tomorrow. Currently, Shashi is serving his second term as Congress MP in India. This episode of It's a Long Story is hosted by Marc Fennell.

Born in Nigeria to a Muslim father and a Christian mother, Inua Ellams fled with his family at age 12 to the UK. He spent his youth in London, then Dublin, then London again, and has said that his teenage years were characterised by perpetual crises of identity. Inua spent his life creating art, writing poetry, and going on long walks through the city. While everyone else was sleeping, he was searching for some sense of identity. This episode of It’s a Long Story is hosted by Marc Fennell.

Born in North Korea in 1993, Yeonmi Park grew up in a society devoted to ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong-Il. As a child she regularly came across dead bodies on the street and spent months at a time without electricity. And people she knew were executed for merely watching American movies. In 2007 Yeonmi and her mother escaped into China, but were captured and sold to human traffickers. Two years later they reached the Mongolian border, and eventually arrived in South Korea. This episode is hosted by Marc Fennell.

Growing up in New Jersey Amani Al-Khatahtbeh was a pretty normal kid. Then 9/11 happened and life changed forever. She spent her teenage years navigating growing racism and Islamophobia in America, and at the age of 17 she founded a blog called Muslim Girl. The site gave young Muslim women a platform to discuss all of the things – periods to politics. And over the years, it transformed from a part time passion project to a full time social movement, logging millions of hits every year.

This episode is hosted by Marc Fennell.

One evening in 1996 the basement of the Cornelia Street Café in New York’s Grenwich Village came alive when Eve Ensler performed The Vagina Monologues for the very first time. Since then, her play has been translated into 48 languages and presented in over 140 countries with the world’s best stage and screen actors performing it to packed houses. In the 20 years that have passed since the premiere, Eve has gone on to write many more plays and books, start global political movements that have made over 100 million dollars for grassroots groups. 

This episode of It's A Long Story is hosted by Marc Fennell.

An HBO Documentary, two best-selling memoirs, pop culture cover stories, beauty columns, speaking engagements, essays, social media - Janet Mock is doing it all. And at the same time, she's eager to expand beyond her personal experience and share the platform that she has built with others in her community who may not be as fortunate. Janet is arguably one of the most influential transwomen working in media and is using every tool available to her to tell the stories that shift and challenge preconceived notions about what is possible for transpeople. 

This episode of It's a Long Story is hosted by Marc Fennell.

A kitchen in Melbourne's Footscray provided the humble origins for Camp Cope's Kelly-Dawn Helmrich, Georgia Maq and Sarah Thompson. Since joining forces in 2015, the trio haven't wasted a second of their time in the spotlight, using their newfound influence to launch the It Takes One campaign. Aimed at stopping harassment of women at live music gigs, Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich has said of the project: “We have a platform now where people listen to us so we want to give back to other people who don’t have a stage to speak on.”

Since she was a kid, there was never any doubt in Izzi Manfredi’s mind that she wanted to make music. Meeting Jack Moffitt and Thomas Champion at university, the three formed The Preatures. With influences like The Beatles, the Divinyls and The Pretenders, the band achieved international success with the 2013 track, “Is this how you feel?”. Their latest release is Girlhood, a distinctly personal album, which draws on stories from Izzi’s own childhood and adolescence.