The Conversation

Cecilia Braekhus is considered one of the best female boxers, pound for pound, in the world. She's known in the ring as'The First Lady, because she was the first woman to be taken on by one of Europe's biggest boxing promoters and has held all of the major boxing belts simultaneously. It hasn't been easy for Cecilia to make it in her career: boxing was banned in her native Norway until 2014, so she had to move to Germany to succeed. But she was highly motivated and admits: "The people who do this are not ordinary people, we need the adrenalin, we need the action". Cecilia says she doesn't want to be seen as a sex symbol, and has "respectfully" turned down offers to pose for men's magazines. She wants fans to come to her matches to see her fight, not "look up under my skirt".

And in the other corner we have Hanna Gabriels from Costa Rica. Hanna didn't start out as a boxer, she was a runner, but a back injury as a teenager put a stop to a promising athletic career. As a result she gained weight, which made her unhappy, and her dad, who was an amateur boxer, told her to try boxing to get back into shape. Hanna fell in love with the sport and has gone on to win several international victories. She says that Costa Rica is a "soccer country", so promoting herself outside the ring has been tough, but was amazed when she managed to get 15,000 people in a stadium to watch her fight.

Picture: Cecilia Braekhus (Left), Hanna Gabriels (Right)

Kira Lea Dargin's parents met at church. Her mother is white from a Russian family who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s, and her father is Aboriginal Australian. Being "mixed" Kira says, means constantly having to explain how you came about or how your family manages to blend. Having come through some difficult times as a teenager Kira now happily identifies with both of her cultural backgrounds. As the director of 'Aboriginal Model Management Australia', her mission is to help broaden how Australian beauty is defined.

Annina Chirade describes herself as Ghanaian Austrian. She is the founder and editor of Rooted In magazine. When she was growing up, between London and Vienna, people would often question whether she was related to her fair, straight-haired mother. After many years obsessively straightening her own "kinky, curly, Afro-" hair as a teenager, she found her own style - inspired by the confident styles of black female singers like Erykah Badu. Annina says that when you are 'mixed-race' people make assumptions about your identity and consider it to be "up for debate", but she is clear that "whiteness is not something I'm a part of."

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Emily Otali is a primatologist from Uganda. She's been told that she's the first black African woman to earn a PhD in the subject. On an early field trip she broke the rules and made direct eye-contact with a female chimpanzee, but that was the moment she 'fell in love' and found her vocation. Emily's job now is to observe a community of chimpanzees in Uganda's Kibale National Park and study their behaviour from dawn to sunset, and from birth until death. She says there's a deeper purpose to the work:- "we also study them to understand ourselves: where we have come from and where we're going in the future." Emily gave up her social life in Kampala for a comparatively lonely, but beautiful, forest life. She's also living apart from one of her children who is at school in the city. Despite some initial misgivings her parents and family now support her career choice and she tells others to be sure to choose a job they love because "if you don't like it, you'll never be happy."

Lone Nielsen left behind a 10-year career as an air hostess and turned her habit of volunteering at a research project for orangutans in Borneo into her life's work. Lone is the founder of Nyaru Menteng Rescue Centre which now looks after around 600 orangutans who've been orphaned, displaced or mistreated. The aim of the Centre is to 'educate' the apes so they can return to the wild and start a new population. She describes how, for eight years, her own house on the Indonesian island was home to between 6 and 36 orphaned baby orangutans who needed through-the-night care either needing milk, their diapers changed, or comfort if their nightmares woke them. She says: "I became the substitute mother and I didn't get a lot of sleep at the time." In her time working with orangutans Lone says she's observed gender traits in their behaviour which are so similar to humans, "it's scary." She says male apes often "take the easy way out" and are less industrious than the females. Lone also talks about "the kindest soul I've ever met" - an orangutan called Alma whose death she describes as the hardest thing that ever happened to her.

Presenter: Kim Chakanetsa

Leslea Newman has written more than sixty children's books. She says she can't remember a time when she didn't want to be a writer. As a teenager Leslea got her work published in magazines and she also worked as Alan Ginsberg's apprentice. When a friend told her she couldn't find any books for her daughter that portrayed a family like hers, with two lesbian parents, Leslea decided she needed to do something and wrote the children's picture book Heather has two Mommies. When it was published in 1989 it caused outrage "It started getting challenged and banned and I got called all kinds of terrible names". Twenty-five years later the book has been re-released, to a much kinder reception.

Candy Gourlay grew up in the Philippines and fell in love with books as a child, but says "all the stories were of these pink-skinned children with fluffy pets", and she came to the conclusion that Filipinos were not "allowed to be in books". So her first novel was set in London with English characters and an agent said "why does your book look like that?", because it had no connection to Candy's experience. Candy took this advice on board and since then has created imaginary worlds with Filipino characters for her young readers. New technology has a role in Candy's work, she says that children have so many things "clamouring for their attention", so you've got to compete and embrace "their world". She does this with her novel Shine, which combines ghosts and the internet.

Picture: Leslea Newman (Left) Credit: Mary Vazquez; Candy Gourlay (Right) Credit: Cindy Bajema/Sambat Trust

Luisa Clasen AKA Lully is a video blogger, or "vlogger" from Brazil. Her vlogs about art and culture, shot from her apartment in Rio de Janeiro, have attracted nearly 180,000 YouTube subscribers. Lully launched her channel giving fashion tips, but then refocused it on her first passion, filmmaking. Advertisers love her, so Lully's able to make a living from her online posts. She says she's nicer than the average vlogger and gives a balanced opinion, which "scares trolls". Lully doesn't use bad language, avoids politics and admits when she's wrong. It's hard for her to disconnect from her online life though, especially as her boyfriend is also a well-known vlogger in Brazil "it's a struggle for both of us to let go of our phones and just talk to each other", but they keep each other up to date with what's going on.

Ugaaso Abukar Boocow lives in the Somali capital Mogadishu and has become a hit on social media with her pictures and videos documenting everyday life in the city. Ugaaso left Somalia during its civil war and grew up in Canada, she recently went back to live in Mogadishu and says she wants to show a side of the city that's often overlooked - the humour, beauty and beaches. Ugaaso has nearly 70,000 followers on Instagram, from inside Somalia and outside the country. Like Lully she tries to avoid politics, so she doesn't get "stuck in the middle". Ugaaso says she is "cautious" about what she posts to social media because it has a "life of its own and once it escapes your hand it can end up in anyone else's hand".

Image: Ugaaso, credit: Ugaaso A. Boocow; Lully, credit, Lais Moss

Nneka Egbuna is a Nigerian German songwriter and performer. She grew up in Warri in the Delta region of Nigeria and travels the world performing and writing, but still it is her home country and its problems which move her to make music. She says, "It's pain, mainly pain, that does inspire me". Nneka writes her songs on her own and plays guitar and drums as well using various computer applications to create loops and beats. Her influences range from Fela Kuti and Bob Marley to Dolly Parton. She talks about the pressure to look conventionally sexy and sound 'fragile' as a female singer and shares what she has learned about controlling who you want to be as an artist.

Swedish pop music composer Maria Marcus has made her name writing catchy melodies for other artists to perform - responding to briefs given to her by record companies. She is currently creating hit songs for the South Korean group Girls Generation among others, and likens the ability to write in different genres to having a split personality. Maria's inspiration for music tends to come from "some kind of problem in your life that you have a need to express". She attended a songwriting academy in Sweden which taught her that she works best by collaborating with others in the studio, especially when it comes to song lyrics.

(Photo: (Left) Nneka, credit Patrice Bart-Williams, (Right) Maria, credit Jana Damrōse)

Chika Anadu is a self-taught film-maker who wrote, produced and directed her first feature film, the acclaimed B for Boy, in 2013. After studying law in the UK she went back to her home country Nigeria to shoot her film - a contemporary drama which reflects the tension between modern and traditional values in middle-class family life in Lagos. Its central character is a female TV producer who is under pressure to have a baby boy. Chika says, "you tell the stories that you know... I'm Nigerian, I'm Igbo...but I feel that what affects me most is the fact that I'm a woman." Chika also talks about her choice not to go to film school and how she dealt with major financial and technical problems on her set.

Shonali Bose is an independent film-maker from India who sees her art as a form of social activism. She has most recently directed Margarita, With a Straw - a coming-of-age movie about a young woman with cerebral palsy. Shonali says finding funding is always a challenge, "the discrimination is such that if it is a woman-led film, it is very hard to find money and I think that is not just the case in India". Her advice to aspiring directors is to get experience on film-sets and to work extremely hard. She talks about combining motherhood with movie-making and sees her two feature films as her 'non-human' children!

(Photo: Chika Anadu (left), Credit: Restless Talent ; Shonali Bose (right), Credit: Shonali Bose)

Irish striker Stephanie Roche fell in love with football from an early age. She went to matches with her dad and brothers and played on boys' teams before joining girls' sides from the age of 13. Her opponents were surprised to see a girl on the pitch and says she would sometimes get a bit of abuse from players and parents "but nothing too bad". The insults didn't bother her though, she just focussed on her game. Stephanie went on to represent her country, as well as playing for local teams. It was at a minor league match where she scored the goal that would change her life. By chance the spectacular volley was filmed and uploaded to the internet; it was picked up by FIFA and took second place in their best goal of the year competition, beating stars like Manchester United's Robin van Persie and Chelsea's Diego Costa.

Sahar El Hawary was also inspired by her father. She used to sit on the sidelines and watch him referee matches in her native Egypt. It was unusual to see a girl watching from the benches, but Sahar loved the atmosphere and wanted to be as close as she could to the action. At the time Egypt didn't have a women's football team and Sahar thought this was wrong, so she travelled around the country talent-spotting young players and training them in secret in her family's compound. People said she was, "crazy ... and how can women play football? It's a man's game." Sahar wouldn't accept 'no' for an answer and now she takes the national team to tournaments across the region. Today women and girls can be seen playing football across Egypt.

Image: Stephanie Roche (credit FAI/Sportsfile) and Sahar El Hawary

Aowen Jin is from China but has lived and worked in the UK for 18 years. Originally trained as a lawyer, she swapped a life at the bar for a life at the easel and now her work is in the Queen's private collection.

Before the civil war Sara Shamma was a star of the blossoming Syrian art scene. She carried on painting in Damascus for as long as she could - starting on a series called Diaspora. By the time she finished it, she was herself part of the Syrian diaspora, having fled to neighbouring Lebanon where she has made her home.

Aowen and Sara joined Kim Chakanetsa in the studio to talk about leaving home, taking inspiration from conflict, family ties and how to spend a day off relaxing to music and eating cheese!

(Photo: Sara Shamma and Aowen Jin outside the BBC offices in London. Credit: Tim Allen)

Salima Ikram was born in Pakistan and got hooked on ancient Egyptian artefacts through the pictures in a childhood book. Her fate as an Egyptologist was sealed when she came face-to-face, aged nine, with mesmerising statues in the Cairo museum; she decided then that finding out more about them would be her life's work. "Archaeologists are people who never grew up" she says. When not lecturing at the American University in Cairo, Salima will be somewhere dry, dusty, and dirty, recording ancient inscriptions or X-raying mummies - human and animal. Her role models in archaeology were women who had been working since the 1940s, but, she says sexism is still a problem and more so in the west than the east. The important thing, she says, "is to do what you want to do and do it very well."

Justine Benanty is a qualified pilot but as a maritime archaeologist her time is spent underwater rather than in the sky. At her first dig in Israel she realised that she hated wheelbarrows and got sunburnt too easily to work in the desert, so investigating shipwrecks became her focus. Her project for the last five years has been to tell the stories of the slaves, who were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, through archaeology. It is a science which needs an image overhaul because, she says "there's nothing cooler than finding [...] a shipwreck at the bottom of the sea that no-one has seen for hundreds of years". She is a co-founder of the ArchaeoVenturers project, a collection of videos and blogs about issues in history and science, which also celebrates women's work in these fields.

(Photo: Salima Ikram and Justine Benanty. Credit: Salima Ikram - J. Rowland)