Stories Seldom Told

Nematullah Ahangosh is an activist, poet and social worker from Afghanistan. He studied in school in Kabul from 2014 to 2018. He's also been a young member with a group of peace activists there too.

"People around me, including my family, they believe that one day, a miracle will happen to me and that will cure my disability. But I don't want that right now. I have accepted myself through my disability. I really care for empowerment. I want to be empowered and I want other people with disabilities also to be empowered."

Kevin McArevey is the Principal of Holy Cross Boys’ School in the Ardoyne area in Northern Belfast in Northern Ireland. Kevin has been a teacher in the Ardoyne area for 26 years and Principal for the last ten. Kevin has written a book called Think Think Respond (slow thinking) and TTR (fast thinking)".

"What would you do if you had a ring of invisibility?

Onir is an award-winning Indian director, producer, screenwriter and editor. He's one of the few openly gay directors in India. Born Anirban Dhar in Samchi, Bhutan, Onir spent much of his childhood going to the cinema.

He is also well known for his 2005 film My Brother...Nikhil, based on the life of Indian AIDS activist, Dominic D'Souza. It was one of the first mainstream Hindi films to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships.

"I suddenly felt that I don't belong, until then I felt that I was a part of this group. Very often people say that it's important to have discourse, have discussions with people. I've spent my lifetime doing that, and at some point, you're exhausted in constantly trying to validate your identity. And now I'm at a point of life where I am like, it's your shortcoming. And it's not my job in life. It's not my duty, to spend my time, energy, effort to constantly educate people, about learning to respect someone else."

Kushanava Choudhury is the writer of the The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta (2017).

"I went back to Calcutta once to visit I found a little magazine, where they had published an issue on the Bengal famine. And in that issue, there were 16 interviews of people who were witnesses of the famine, who were still alive. They had their photographs, and testimony. And these people are in their 90s, oldest person was 112 years old. And I just could not believe that these people were alive to tell the stories. These are just ordinary people who were farmers in the countryside. What happened when the rice disappeared, what they did, how they sold their house and home, fled for their lives, many of them went into the jungles in the Sunderbans, with the tigers. And when I read those stories, I really did not want to read them. Because in a way they were shocking to me, but in another way, they were stories I wish did not exist. Because the fact that they existed, meant that there were 10s, 100’s, 1000s of people who were out there who had stories to tell, who had simply not been asked, and one of the people who had not asked them was me."

Annette Smith (née Julien) was born in December 1927 on the small Caribbean Island of Grenada into a privileged family. She was educated in Trinidad and returned to Grenada where she completed a year of Nursing before embarking on her journey to England aged just 18. She travelled completely alone and this was her first trip abroad.

"And I think the important too at our age is to have interests. At my very old age, I am a member of a singing group, which I love. And I must say I do have a good voice. I've always ben able to sing from school days. So that is one of the lovely things that I do."

Akkai Padmashali is an Indian transgender social and political activist. She is the Founder of Ondede, an organization that works with LGBTQI+ minorities on the idea of convergence (also known as intersectionality). Akkai has written a memoir entitled, A Small Step in a Long Journey.

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Anthony Anaxagorou is a British-born Cypriot poet, writer, essayist, publisher and poetry educator. He is the winner of the 2023 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize for his most recent poetry collection “Heritage Aesthetics” published by Granta.

The chair of judges, journalist Samira Ahmed, described Anthony’s poetry as “beautiful, but does not sugar coat. The arsenic of historical imperial arrogance permeates the Britain he explores in his writing. And the joy of this collection comes from his strength, knowledge, maturity, but also from deeply felt love.”

His poetry has been published in POETRY, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, New Statesman, Granta, and elsewhere. His work has also appeared on BBC Newsnight, BBC Radio 4, ITV, Vice UK, Channel 4 and Sky Arts.

"That's the deal breaker. If you can meet someone, and you can see something in them, that reflects you, be it a principle, be it a belief, be it a way that you would like to be seen. I think that's the one that draws you in. We talk about being charismatic, we talk about being charming. Some people are very naturally charismatic, which means it's not trained. But I also think there's an element of how does that charisma impact and affect us in different ways?"

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Yasmin is a journalist, broadcaster, author and part time professor of journalism. She writes for the i newspaper and Sunday Times magazine and has written for the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, New York Times, Time Magazine and other publications.

She has won several awards including the Orwell Prize for political writing and National Press Awards columnist of the year prize. She is a national and international public speaker, a consultant on diversity and inclusion and trustee of various arts organisations.

"I think because I had such a difficult childhood. I have a very strong centre. And it was destabilised by Oxford, but it wasn't destroyed. And that kind of self belief I has saved me. I don't think I'm better than anybody else, or a superwoman or any of that. But I do know that the stuff I do, I can do, and I'm good at it. And that these bastards will not beat me, that really drives me all the time."

Charmi Chheda is a filmmaker, writer, and theatre director in Bhutan. Charmi moved to Bhutan ten years ago from India and now sees Bhutan as her home. Charmi has made two feature films, Ganganam Girl and Bulwa and is currently working with 'Samuh', Bhutan’s first streaming platform as a Creative Director.

"I feel somewhere, since everyone is constantly putting up a show. The world expects you to constantly put up a show. And now with social media platforms, I wouldn't be surprised that people are confused about the reel and the real, as time passes. This judgement about one's intelligence really comes out of show. If you are sitting in a meeting or you're with friends, you need to have something to say. If you don't have anything to say and decide to be quiet, they say 'oh, this person is not smart enough.'"

Anthony Swann has been in education for 16 years as a classroom teacher and instructional coach. He has had the privilege of teaching every elementary grade except kindergarten.

In 2021, Anthony became the first sitting teacher ever to be appointed to the State Board of Education by the US Governor of Virginia.Anthony is currently the assistant principal of Monterey Elementary in Roanoke, Virginia.

In 2018, Anthony began a program entitled “Guys with Ties” to teach boys the importance of honesty, integrity, and character inside and outside of the classroom. In 2021, Anthony was elected by his peers to be the Teacher of the Year in two different schools. Anthony then went on to become the 2021 Virginia State Teacher of the Year.

"My dream was to become a teacher and I would play school every single day. And I could go places in my mind. All when I was in foster care, although I was not having the best situation with my life. I began to dream and I would play school every day and when I would play school it would take me away from foster care. It would take me away from the abuse. It would take me away from the neglect. It would take me away from the feelings of wishing that I was dead, and so playing school was my safe place. And so I just realised that I could go anywhere if I just dream."