The Conversation

Lyric soprano Danielle de Niese was a star performer at Last Night of the Proms 2015. It was another milestone in this Australian-born American star's glittering career. Growing up, Danielle won various talent and television competitions and debuted at New York's prestigious Metropolitan Opera House when she was 19 years old. She says she knew she wanted to sing opera from the age of eight. Described as "opera's coolest soprano", Danielle is best known for her performances of Handel, Mozart, baroque music, as well as her reality TV shows, including The Diva Diaries.

South African soprano Pretty Yende discovered opera by chance. She was 16 years old and watching a television advertisement for an airline, which featured The Flower Duet, from the opera Lakme by Léo Delibes. Pretty fell in love with the sound and instantly wanted to imitate it. She went to be classically trained at Cape Town University and then got a place at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, in Milan. In 2011 Pretty won first prize in Placido Domingo's Operalia competition and two years later she shot to fame when, at short notice, she had to stand in to perform Countess Adele in Rossini's opera, Le Comte Ory. This was Pretty's Metropolitan Opera House debut.

(Picture: Opera singers Danielle de Niese (left) and Pretty Yende. Credits: Chris Dunlop/Kim Fox)

Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir grew up on an Icelandic farm that has been in her family for three generations. She has always loved Icelandic goats - a rare and beautiful breed - and when she took over the family farm she decided to concentrate on raising them. Iceland did not have a big market for goat products but Jóhanna slowly built a customer base for her goats milk, cheese, wool and meat. After the country entered a financial crisis in 2008, Jóhanna ended up in danger of having to sell her farm. This would have been a great loss to her, but could have led to extinction for the Icelandic goat as Jóhanna's was the only commercial farm still breeding them. She saved her goats with the help of a crowdfunding website and, to her great surprise, thousands of 'Game of Thrones' fans.

Rashida Khan is a cattle producer and animal nutritionist. She runs a stud farm and a cattle station in Northern Australia. Rashida has Afghan and Aboriginal heritage and her family has worked with livestock in the Northern Territory for three generations. When the Australian government banned the export of live cattle to Indonesia following evidence of cruelty in the livestock industry there, Rashida and many like her were affected. She knew that many cattle workers live in remote, isolated places so she turned to social media to offer support to those struggling to adjust after the ban.

(Photo: Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir (left). Credit: Audra Mulkern of the Female Farmer Project. (Right) Rashida Khan)

Visaka Dharmadasa is a celebrated Sri Lankan peace activist whose son went missing in action in 1998, while fighting for the Sri Lankan army against Tamil Tiger rebels. She won a landmark case against the government to get DNA checks done to trace missing soldiers and she works with mothers from both sides of the conflict, Tamils and Sinhalese, for a peaceful future. Visaka's work and her belief that her son is still alive keep her sane; she still keeps the chocolates in the freezer, that she bought for him 15 years ago, waiting for his return.

Luz Villamil is Colombian Palestinian. Her father was kidnapped by Farc left wing guerrillas in 1998, but released after 81 days. Luz's family's joy was short lived as two years later her brother went missing from a Colombian seaside resort. His disappearance has remained a mystery and they have no clues, only rumour and speculation. Luz hopes her brother is hearing the messages her family sends out on a Colombian radio show that features relatives of kidnapped and missing people.

Left: Luz Villamil, Credit: Angelika Bakou

Sangduen 'Lek' Chailert comes from the small hill tribe village of Baan Lao in northern Thailand. At a young age she heard the screams of an elephant that was being forced to work in terrible conditions for the logging industry. Lek felt compelled to help it. Although she had no training she bought some medicine and soon she was being called upon to treat other local elephants. She later formed the Save Elephant Foundation to advocate for the rights of these animals in Thailand and the Elephant Nature Park, a protected area where rescued elephants receive protection and form new herds. Lek says that rebuilding an elephant's trust in humans can be a challenge - 'they never forget' - but she's found a novel technique: singing them lullabies.

Saba Douglas-Hamilton was born in Kenya where her father worked as a prominent elephant conservationist. In fact she says she was 'baptised in elephant's breath' as her mother introduced her to wild elephants when she was a baby. Today she works for the charity her family started, Save the Elephants, which researches their behaviour and works with local people to promote human-elephant co-existence. She once feared for her life when she woke in the night to find a wild bull elephant towering over her mattress. Unperturbed by this, she says 'I find elephants endlessly fascinating…We recognise in them, and they recognise in us, a parallel intelligence'.

(L) Saba Douglas-Hamilton. Credit: Sam Gracey

Lauren LeRoy is a 25-year-old funeral director from New York State. She says she knew she wanted to do this job from the age of 12. Lauren works at a funeral home established by her great uncle, and explains that you have to be good at reading a situation to know how to deal with each grieving family. The worst part of the job for Lauren is the moment just before she closes the casket for the final time and the family are saying their last goodbyes, knowing they won't see their relative again.

Nomthetho Zote runs a funeral parlour in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. The funeral business is in her blood too, she took over the home from her parents. When Nomthetho was growing up she says death was less common, people generally died of old age, but the high prevalence of HIV/ AIDS in the country has made death an every day thing. Nomthetho even gets calls at 3am from families asking for her help, and she says whatever time of day it is you always have to be patient and kind with grieving people.

(Picture: Nomthetho Zote (Left) and Lauren LeRoy (Right). Credit: Amanda Polanski)

Jenny Brusk didn't know what she was letting herself in for when she enrolled in a university Masters course in computing in 1990. She went on to become Sweden's first female games developer but she was often mistaken for the company receptionist. The experience made her stronger. She says, "rather than go hide somewhere in the office I would fill my space". Jenny is now researching how game characters can be made more psychologically realistic by using natural speech, gossip and lies. She is also the founder of DONNA, an organisation which aims to attract more women into the games industry.

Roboticist Angelica Lim is a self-professed 'geek' who programmes robots to have more 'human' traits, like compassion and empathy. She has lived, baked biscuits and made music with a robot, all in the name of research. The goal is creating the perfect companion robot which might provide help and therapy to the elderly or provide assistance at home to anyone. At some points when she was sharing her home with the robot, Angelica found herself questioning the relationship asking, "is it my servant or is it my kid?"

(Photo (L): Jenny Brusk, credit: Torbjörn Svensson. (R): Angelica Lim, credit: Andy Heather)

Iliana Fokianaki is from Athens and is an art curator, critic and journalist. She also runs a non-profit contemporary art gallery which opened its doors in the Greek capital last year. Iliana describes seeing people rummaging through bins on a daily basis, which didn't happen before the crisis. She is in her mid-thirties and reveals that even though she would like to have a child, she can't because she can't afford to.

Bettina Rosenqvist is from Caracas and recently opened a new juice bar despite the financial situation. She says that queuing for hours at the supermarket for essential products and dealing with constant price rises has become the norm. Bettina won't visit the cinema anymore as she's scared to sit in dark places because she feels muggings have increased in the Venezuelan capital as people get more desperate.

Anastasia IV from Poland joined the circus at eighteen. She performs one of the most risky and unusual acts in the circus: hair-hanging. Anastasia endures pain in her scalp and neck as she swings around the auditorium suspended by a metal ring which is plaited into her hair. She says it's 'the closest you can get to actually flying like a bird'

Sarah Swarz grew up in a circus family in Germany and started performing at the age of ten. She trained as a wire walker, contortionist and acrobat. She and her husband live in a trailer and travel with their Piglet Circus where her pig Max, is the 'boss of the show' - he can use a microphone and is trained to undo her clothes for a striptease routine.

Anastasia IV (r) (credit: Circus of Horrors)

Simone Singh is an award winning Indian television and film actress. She became a household name for playing the title role in the popular serial drama Heena. The audience was sympathetic to the heroine of this show, but Simone says even when she played a "baddie" she doesn't lose fans because "they remember your past work, they love you anyway".

Sarah Mayberry works on Australia's longest running soap opera, Neighbours, as a script writer and story liner. She describes the storyline meetings as intense, where the team "absolutely bare their souls" when using personal experience to brainstorm ideas. Sarah has worked on Neighbours for 16 years and says they "spread the villainy across the sexes".

(Picture: Simone Singh - Left and Sarah Mayberry - Right)

Mahboba Rawi was a teenager when the Soviet-Afghan War broke out. She led protests against Soviet control in her high school. After she was nearly arrested, she decided to flee the country. Along with millions of others, Mahboba made the ten day walk to the border with Pakistan, not knowing whether she would ever see the relatives she was leaving behind again. Eventually, she married an Afghan-Australian man and settled with him in Australia. Life took another tragic turn when her son drowned in an accident. His death moved her to set up her own charity, Mahboba's Promise which supports impoverished children and widows in Afghanistan.

Cynthia Masiyiwa left Zimbabwe ten years ago when the country was in political and economic crisis. Worried for her future, her parents sent her to live with her sister in the UK. Cynthia thought the UK would be a "land of opportunities", but she quickly experienced several setbacks. She disliked the cold climate, the "frosty" behaviour of Londoners - and then her mother died. As the only black student in her class, Cynthia was shocked to experience racism; in fact she jokes that running from bullies helped her become a 'champion sprinter'. Later she gained the confidence to challenge the prejudices of her peers and eventually her classmates became her allies. Now she works for Citizens UK helping other young migrants to navigate the immigration system and even persuading the government to improve it.

(Photo: Cynthia Masiyiwa. Credit: Cynthia Masiyiwa)