Positive Solace with Attika Choudhary

In the latest instalment of Positive Solace: Women of Vision, Attika chats with Dr Paula Kahumbu, a multiple award-winning wildlife conservationist, well-known presenter of Kenya's Wildlife Warriors and Chief Executive Officer of WildlifeDirect, a conservation programme launched by Richard Leakey.

She is well known for spearheading the "Hands Off Our Elephants" campaign, which has been successful in reducing the poaching of elephants, but now the campaign is focusing on change in the behaviour and attitudes of the people towards wildlife and especially elephants where new villages or developments encroach on the elephants' feeding habits. As a result of her work, the campaign has succeeded in getting governments to bring in laws enabling the successful arrest and prosecution of known ivory smugglers.

Kenya sees some of the highest migration of animals in the world every year, with more than two million wildebeest, zebra and many other species. Paula wants people to be better-educated about the wildlife and environment around them; she wants them to become conservationists. Her latest project is to build a centre as part of the First Protected Area in Africa specifically designed for children, in the Wildlife Warrior Kids programme.

How did Paula develop such a passion for conservation and wildlife? Growing up just outside of Nairobi, Kenya, Paula has been raised with nature and wildlife around her. When she was younger she was greatly influenced by Richard Leakey and he became her mentor. Now, as one of the loudest voices in Wildlife Conservation in Africa, Paula wants to educate the people to own the wildlife and nature around them. But there are forces that oppose what Paula is doing and these are not just the poaching organisations.

Paula was shocked by the recent killing of Joannah Stutchbury a conservationist who staunchly defended Kiambu Forest from developers. Dr Kahumbu says that prominent conservationists have been targets first because of the ivory trade and now for opposing development and encroachment by land-grabbing building companies. “We work in an environment of fear for our lives,” she said, “and Joannah's death proves this is no exaggeration.”

She has written a book which has been translated in 27 languages and has sold a million copies. 'Owen and Mzee - The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship’, based on the unlikely friendship between an infant hippopotamus and an Aldabra giant tortoise.

You can find out more about Wildlife Direct, including how to donate, here: www.wildlifedirect.org

A sneak peek of season 2 of Wildlife Warriors https://vimeo.com/507900821

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In this week’s episode of Positive Solace: Women of Vision, Attika interviews Siobhan Baillie, the first ever woman MP for Stroud.

Becoming an MP for the first time already has its challenges, but for Siobhan, the challenges were complicated by the fact that she was pregnant at the time of the election. Three months later, the Coronavirus pandemic forced people into lockdown and MPs had to do business from home. But Siobhan is no novice as far as the Internet is concerned.

Leaving home at the age of 15 and underperforming at her GCSEs, she often sofa-surfed at the houses of her friends before getting work as a secretary in a law firm. Then, luckily, they sponsored her to study for her solicitor's exams. As a solicitor, Siobhan was moved by families who struggled to pay for the services of people like herself, and she saw a lot to be desired in the divorce laws so she entered politics. First she won a seat as a borough councilor, and then as an MP in Westminster.

She is now working to change the laws regarding separating families and has been successful in creating a no-fault divorce. Alongside her work as an MP, Siobhan is one of those courageous enough to tackle online abuse and trolling, especially on behalf of susceptible young people. This includes working with the Stop The Hate Campaign and Clean up the Internet, two organisations challenging all forms of hate crime and discrimination.

Attika and Siobhan speak about the need for more female representation in UK politics, and the challenges that women politicians face every day. They discuss what can be done to combat abuse of women on social media, and how to help younger adults who are considering going into politics.

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In this episode of Positive Solace: Women of Vision, Attika meets Jessica Hepburn, one of the UK's leading voices on fertility and family.

Jessica has one of the most remarkable and inspiring stories to tell - overcoming adversity and going on to swim the channel to climbing Mount Everest more recently.

While trying to become a mother, she went through 11 rounds of IVF treatment, and an ectopic pregnancy that almost proved fatal, she was down and out and staring into the abyss. Her long cherished ambition to have a family was over.

The mental and physical strain had been enormous – often IVF stories have an extremely happy ending, making all the hurt and pain seem

worthwhile. This one doesn't – there was no baby and no new life that had come from the deep love, support and commitment of her partner.

She had a successful career in the arts, as executive director of the Lyric in Hammersmith, London, one of the country’s best known theatres and spearheaded its £20 million capital redevelopment plan – all the while hiding her intense pain and hurt – of not having a family.

Describing this time as the “darkest period” of her life, she tells Attika what helped to drag herself from the depths of despair to find

hope, zest and a new hunger for life. She has found the strength and conviction to put her experiences into writing - with a bestselling novel on fertility.

Slowly, and methodically, she found it in writing and then in founding the Fertility Fest, co-creating the world’s very first arts festival

dedicated to fertility and modern family making, and finally and more recently, in Adventure Activism, combining her love of challenges with

raising money for charity. She is no athlete as she tells Attika but set herself demanding physical goals.

Listen to Jessica and Attika talk about how from the lowest of lows, you can find your way back to the top and they of course discuss fertility,

what it means to be a mother or not in today’s world - and how the future might look like for women who want a family… and a life that is

fulfilling too in other ways...

You can find more about Fertility Fest here: https://www.fertilityfest.com/

Also, here are some links to Jessica’s literary work.

‘21 Miles’­ - https://www.amazon.co.uk/21-Miles-Jessica-Hepburn/dp/1783526092

‘The Pursuit of Motherhood’ - https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Pursuit-Motherhood-Jessica-Hepburn/1783061871

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In this episode of Positive Solace: Women of Vision, Attika talks to Roya Mahboob, the CEO of the Digital Citizen Fund that helps students through digital education. In fact Roya is championing the cause of education for girls and women, and works with the Afghan government to create STEM schools where Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are made available to all students.

Roya started the group of robotics specialists known as The Afghan Dreamers, who also join Attika in this podcast.

This six-girl robotics team made up of teenagers between 14 and 18 years old, has already won awards. When challenged by the Herat Governor to help with the Covid-19 crisis, they created a ventilator from old car pieces that should hit the market soon costing around $600.

Some ventilators sell at upwards of $50,000.

Roya is keen to break down cultural barriers and prejudices that question the value of women being educated. She encourages girls to pursue careers in engineering and robotics, a suggestion bucking the social trend and unheard of in Afghanistan until recently.

Attika talks to Roya and the girls about the successes they’ve had with their work, their experiences growing up with the unrest in Afghanistan and all the challenges that brings. What lies ahead for these dreamers? Listen to the podcast now available on all platforms.

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In this week’s episode of Positive Solace: Women of Vision – 'Women beyond War' - Attika speaks with Iman Humaydan, an award-winning Lebanese writer who says she uses words to alleviate her pain: her pain from the devastating civil war that ended in 1990: her pain for the disintegration of her beloved Lebanon; her pain for women trying to operate in a man's world where men write all the rules.

She puts into her fiction, which is close to fact, all her own experiences and those of other Lebanese women. Her hard-hitting and eye-opening novels concern the struggles of womanhood, family, loss, as well as the bitter consequences of war. Iman's perspective is unique as revealed through her characters.

Iman talks about how writing has been a cathartic, cleansing experience for her, and helped her cope with the post-war problems and social adversity: it seems even in our modern age many people in Lebanon oppose women taking power for themselves.

Iman talks of motherhood and her job teaching in Paris and how she divides her life between a Lebanon struggling to rise from the ashes and the ancient, cultural city of Paris, which ironically, has recently known its own violence.

You can find a selection of Iman’s works here:

‘The Weight of Paradise’ - www.interlinkbooks.com/product/weight-of-paradise-the/

‘Wild Mulberries’ - www.interlinkbooks.com/product/wild-mulberries/

‘Other Lives’ - www.interlinkbooks.com/product/other-lives/

Iman Humaydan is a co founder of Pen Lebanon and its current president. For Lebanese writers link here: https://penlebanon.org/index.php/about/

This week Attika is also joined by guest presenter, James Ward, a young aspiring writer and Positive Solace’s assistant producer.

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In this week’s episode of Positive Solace: Women of Vision - 'Sisters in Motion'

Attika speaks to Branwen Summers and Elisha Applebaum, two young actresses who are great friends and are making strides in helping women wanting to work in the entertainment industry.

Aside from their individual careers, together they present a podcast called ‘Woman Waves’ where they talk about the entertainment industry and the challenges women face within it.

This is in partnership with The Girls Network, an organisation that aims to inspire and empower girls from the most disadvantaged communities by connecting them with a mentor and a network of professional female role models.

In our podcast, Branwen talks to Attika about her love of creativity, not only as an actress, but as a producer, and tells us what it is like to produce and act in a male-dominant industry.

She also talks about her role with the Creative Mentor Network, while Elisha talks about her successes such as her outstanding award-nominee performance in James Arden’s ‘Leopard’ as well as her breakout role as Musa, in the hit Netflix series ‘Fate: The Winx Saga’ and the bright future she has ahead of her.

You can find out more about The Girls’ Network here: https://www.thegirlsnetwork.org.uk

More information on the Creative Mentor Network here: https://www.creativementornetwork.org/

You can also check out the aforementioned short film 'Leopard' starring Elisha here: https://vimeo.com/553298373/comments

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In this episode of Positive Solace: Women of Vision, Attika speaks to Aline Boblin and her journey into menopause.

Aline is a passionate campaigner for menopause awareness, and is the director of the Transformation in Action CIC: an organization driven to support women’s health issues such as the menopause.

Aline is someone who has experienced the menopause herself. She has been misdiagnosed by GPs on several occasions, and as a result suffered long-term mental and physical pain.

She is finding ways to empower women with the knowledge they need pre-menopause. She also wants to challenge the stigma around menopause in the workplace, to offset the shocking NHS shortages and broaden GPs' knowledge and experience of menopausal symptoms.

Aline talks to Attika about the effects of a menopause that she suffered and how it affected her job, her family and her friends. They discuss awhat can be done to avoid the trauma frequently associated with the menopause.

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In this instalment of “Positive Solace: Women of Vision - Indian Village Girl gets to Havard", Attika meets Seema Kumari, a 17-year-old, who comes from the village of Dahu in Northeast India.

Young girls in Dahu and the Jharkhand region of India face unimaginable challenges – education is very limited, and not seen as a priority for young women. As a result of this, over 50% of young women in the State drop out early or do not attend school at all, and are at extreme risk of human trafficking.

They are likely to end up in a forced marriage when they are not even 12 years old!

In 2012, Seema joined the YUWA Academy: an organisation that aims to shield young women from such dismal futures.

Girls who enrol with YUWA (which translates as “Youth” in Hindi) create their own soccer teams and are mentored each week.

This adventure has taken Seema around the world – from training as a football coach with Real Sociedad in Spain, to spending summers studying at Washington University in the United States.

Thanks to YUWA and Seema’s newly boosted confidence, her determination and inner strength - she has just been accepted into Harvard University with a scholarship to study Social Studies. Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world, with a historically low acceptance rate of people outside the USA. This also makes Seema the first woman in her district to receive a university education.

Seema speaks to Attika about just how challenging life has been up to now, how supportive her family have been of her endeavours, and how excited she is for the future.

Find out more about YUWA and the work they do: https://www.yuwa-india.org/

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Positive Solace with Attika Choudhary returns with its second season – “Women of Vision”.

In this opening episode, 'Never Just A Number', Attika talks to Zainab Basheer, a student and a writer who lives in the Gaza Strip, which has been under blockade from Israeli and Egyptian military forces since 2007.

Zainab writes for “We Are Not Numbers” – an organisation that allows young Palestinians to tell the stories behind the numbers that are often reported in the world’s media.

Despite the latest violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Attika was able to interview Zainab, a young Arab student in the centre of the crisis. They converse about Zainab’s day-to-day life, and how she deals with tough emotions like stress and grief in such an environment. Zainab bewails the bombing of her favourite bookshop and asks, "what have books ever done to be destroyed like this?"

They also discuss what impact the ongoing fighting has had on Zainab’s education and Palestine’s vaccination programme in the COVID-19 crisis.

Find out more about We Are Not Numbers: https://wearenotnumbers.org/

If you'd like to donate towards the rebuilding of the bookshop, here is the link: https://uk.gofundme.com/f/rebuild-gazas-samir-mansour-book-store

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Nabil Abdul Rashid is a comedian a private and carefree soul who sees his comedy more than just a job. In 2010, at the age of 25, he became the youngest black comedian to perform stand-up at the Hammersmith Apollo. Currently a semi-finalist for Britain’s Got Talent, he has been married to his South Asian wife for ten years. Nabil although born in England spent some time in Nigeria before returning in 2006. His father spent time in Soviet Russia, training in the medical profession, before moving to the UK.

Nabil has appeared in many popular comedy skits and Attika Choudhary first saw him performing at a Muslims Lol Ramadan event in 2014 and later introduced him on a BBC English regions comedy event.

In this final episode of “Positive Solace”, Nabil and Attika talk about the comedian's struggles with anxiety stemming from childhood which he described as ‘colourful’. They also discuss the nature of his marriage, as a black Muslim man with Nigerian heritage to a South Asian Muslim woman which is not a common occurrence. He makes comedy of the many times people have stared at him, his wife and children: once, a woman walked into a fruit stall and knocked it over, much to his amusement. He is saddened by racism and takes us into the history of it and believes that there is much more we can do to stop it.

He talks about the virus situation affecting the comedy industry; he explains that much of the comedy world is on hold, due to social distancing, despite many attempts and strategies, like Zoom, to overcome it. He also campaigned for fighting against knife and gun crime. And you can find out more about this charity which Nabil originally formed head over to https://apfoundation.co.uk/

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