Camila Batmanghelidjh

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the children's campaigner Camila Batmanghelidjh. Camila Batmanghelidjh has devoted her life to the kind of children most people would cross the street to avoid - youngsters who are often violent, don't go to school and who are unfamiliar with a stable family life. More than a decade ago she took over a run of disused railway arches in South London to set up a centre offering food, advice, education and counselling. Now her outreach projects serve more than 11,000 children each year and, such is her success, she's feted by celebrities and courted by politicians.

The product of a wealthy Iranian family herself, she decided early on that her vocation lay in working with children and that this was a task she could not combine with motherhood. Last week she was named Woman of the Year in recognition of her ground-breaking work.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Redemption Song by Bob Marley Book: Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartre Luxury: A yoyo