Datshiane Navanayagam talks to two women from Brazil and the UK who have online businesses buying and selling second hand clothes. Ana Luiza McLaren is a co-founder of Enjoei, the biggest second hand selling site in Brazil. She started selling her own clothes through a blog she wrote over fifteen years ago and it wasn’t long before friends were asking her to sell their clothes too. The blog became so popular she and her partner decided to give up their jobs and set up an online business. Ana cho...
Mar 10, 2025•26 min
Millions of children globally are separated from their birth families. For many, foster care is the best option. Foster carers from Moldova and the US speak to Ella Al-Shamahi about the realities of caring for vulnerable children and why they’re pushing for change in the system. Alina Druță is the president of Moldova Without Orphans, the Christian Alliance for Orphans Moldova and the national coordinator for child welfare at Open Gate International Moldova. She has been instrumental in introduc...
Mar 03, 2025•26 min
Ella Al-Shamahi talks to women from Egypt and the US about their work detecting fraud, bribery and corruption for multi-national corporations and law enforcement. Yousr Khalil is from Egypt, after 20 years working in the United States she now heads the Paris Office of Forensic Risk Alliance, a company specialising in in complex, cross-border forensic investigations, regulatory compliance matters and disputes. She was part of the team investigating the aerospace giant Airbus after it admitted pay...
Feb 24, 2025•26 min
Datshiane Navanayagam hears from two women in Nigeria and Denmark to discuss how they teach consent as part of sex education. Mette Øyås Madsen is an award-winning Danish sexual health educator and author. She has incorporated sexual education into the Danish folk high school system for the past ten years. Mette is passionate about promoting topics such as consent, sexuality and gender identity in both educational and workplace settings. She's written a book called Seksuel Dannelse (sexual educa...
Feb 17, 2025•26 min
Datshiane Navanayagam talks to two women about prostheses for amputees in Ukraine and children with limb difference in the UK. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Olga Rudnieva felt she had to do something to help those wounded in the conflict. She set up the Superhumans trauma centre in Lviv, which she runs as CEO alongside a team of specialists, providing prosthetic limbs to patients. It has also launched a rehabilitation centre. Olga is featured on the BBC 100 Women list 2024 of inspiring...
Feb 10, 2025•26 min
Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to two academics dedicated to uncovering the vital role of women in shaping philosophical thought, both past and present. Dr Giulia Cavaliere is an Italian philosopher who lectures at University College London. Her research focuses on infertility, assisted reproductive technologies and the desire to have genetically related children. Dr Sabrina Ebbersmeyer is a German philosopher who made history as the first woman to be appointed as a professor of Philosophy at the ...
Feb 03, 2025•26 min
Telephone helplines support millions of children every year with issues ranging from serious abuse to children who just want someone to chat to on the way home from school. Ella Al-Shamahi talks to two women from South Africa and Greece about supporting children through round-the-clock helplines, counselling and outreach. Dumisile Cele, a trained social worker, is the Chief Executive Officer of Childline South Africa. Their 24-hour helpline is contacted around 300,000 times each year. Dumisile s...
Jan 27, 2025•26 min
If you're planning a big celebration, the idea of having someone else handle all the cooking might feel like a dream...but for some it's a worthwhile indulgence. Hiring a private chef means enjoying delicious, personalised food with minimal effort in the comfort of your own home. Ella Al-Shamahi speaks to two private chefs from India and France who create unforgettable culinary experiences. Indian award-winning chef Abhilasha Chandak decided to become a private chef after moving to London three ...
Jan 20, 2025•26 min
Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to Angie Chioko and Nika Kokareva about clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance, in order to return safe land to their communities. At the end of 2024, The Landmine Monitor Report revealed that children suffer disproportionately from landmines across the world. The remnants of war remain in the ground for decades, claiming civilian lives, long after the fighting had ended. Angie Chioko is a Supervisor at the Mazowe Camp in Zimbabwe, working for The Halo Trust. Zim...
Jan 13, 2025•26 min
Chronic illness - and the pain it often brings - affects millions globally. But while women are more likely to experience chronic pain, they’re less likely to receive adequate treatment. Ella Al-Shamahi speaks to two women who have transformed their experiences with pain and chronic illness into powerful creative expression. Polly Crosby is a British author living with cystic fibrosis. Feeling invisible in the stories she grew up reading, she was inspired to write The Vulpine, a young adult nove...
Jan 06, 2025•26 min
What do Audre Lorde, Pamela Anderson and Florence Nightingale all have in common? They all began writing diaries as young girls and remained seasoned diarists later in life. But what purpose does keeping a diary as a teenager serve? And what can reflecting on the intimate accounts our younger selves wrote, tell us about who we are today and the changing world around us? Ifedayo Agoro is a Nigerian entrepreneur who began writing a diary at the age of eleven. The habit began after she got into tro...
Dec 30, 2024•26 min
Datshiane Navanayagam talks to two writers of romantic fiction about their passion for creating stories that end happily ever after. Kiru Taye wanted to read stories about Africans falling in love. When she couldn’t find those books, she decided to write the stories herself. The books in her Essien series about millionaire banker brothers are international bestsellers, she also writes about crime gangs and tribal rivalry. Kiru founded the publishing firm Love Africa Press and is a co-founder of ...
Dec 23, 2024•26 min
Rising sea levels and increasingly powerful storms are threatening coastlines, low-lying island states and coastal cities around the world. Ella Al-Shamahi talks to two women from Sri Lanka and France about how they’re using satellites to track coastal erosion and develop strategies to reduce its impact on populations. Sarah Dole is a Sri Lankan physicist and entrepreneur leading a satellite image analysis project in the Maldives, the world’s lowest lying country, looking at the rate at which be...
Dec 16, 2024•26 min
Less than 0.001% of the deep ocean has been explored. Ella Al-Shamahi speaks to two women from South Africa and the US who have dedicated their careers to finding out more about our planet's most uncharted depths. Dr Katy Croff Bell is an American ocean explorer and deep-sea technologist. She has over 15 years of experience leading ground-breaking oceanographic and archaeological projects. Katy is the founder of the Ocean Discovery League, an organisation dedicated to expanding global access to ...
Dec 09, 2024•26 min
Women fusing tech and agriculture to farm food - indoors, local and soil-free
Dec 02, 2024•26 min
The music industry is notoriously competitive, making it difficult for artists to break through. Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to two music scouts to find out what they look for when signing musicians to their labels and how to succeed in the business. Jane Abernethy is Managing Director at Omnian Music Group, a Brooklyn-based label group comprised of Captured Tracks, Sinderlyn and 2MR. Originally from Scotland she began her career music scouting in the UK before becoming the Director of A&R ...
Nov 25, 2024•26 min
According to the UN, the fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of global emissions. That's more than aviation and shipping combined. We talk to two women making climate-friendly clothes and developing innovative textiles in a bid to reduce the waste produced by fast fashion. Regina Polanco is the founder and CEO of Pyratex, a textile company making fabrics from seaweed, banana and orange peel for some of the biggest brands in fashion. Born in Vienna, she has also lived in Morocco, Mauritania...
Nov 18, 2024•26 min
Everyone wants to feel confident in the workplace. But knowing what to do to perform at your best isn’t always easy. Datshiane Navanayagam is joined by two entrepreneurs and career coaches to explore strategies to help women thrive in their jobs. Jo Wimble Groves is an award-winning British entrepreneur, writer and motivational speaker specializing in women in the workplace. She has a blog tacking work-life balance and resilience called Guilty Mother which has a global following of 55,000 reader...
Nov 11, 2024•26 min
Datshiane Navanayagam talks to translators from Turkey and Argentina about giving a writer's work a new life in another language, and whether the age of digital translation is putting the craft in jeopardy. Ekin Oklap is Turkish and grew up in Italy. She's the English language translator for Nobel prize-winning Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk and was shortlisted for the 2016 International Booker Prize. She also translates books from Italian to English for novelist Francesca Manfredi and crime writer ...
Nov 06, 2024•26 min
Femicide is defined as the intentional killing of women and girls because of their gender. More than half of these murders are carried out in the home. According to UN figures 89,000 women and girls lost their life to femicide in 2022 alone. Datshiane Navanayagam talks to two women in Puerto Rico and Kenya about their efforts to reduce the number of deaths. Judy Gitau is a Kenyan lawyer whose work involves gaining access to justice for victims of sexual and gender based violence. She works for E...
Oct 28, 2024•26 min
What happens when women bring traditional folklore into the horror genre and subvert it? You get award-winning feature length films, Iranian vampires and Mayan werewolves to name a few examples. Ella Al-Shamahi is joined by Iranian-American filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour and Mexican filmmaker Gigi Saul Guerrero to discuss how to create horror on screen. Ana Lily Amirpour’s award-winning debut feature film, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, is a Persian-language Western-horror. It follows a skateboa...
Oct 21, 2024•26 min
Women make up a large proportion of the workforce in the global tea industry. But despite their crucial role, women in the tea sector often face lower wages and limited access to leadership positions. Datshiane Navanayagam speaks with two tea entrepreneurs to learn more about running tea businesses. Susie Walker-Munro from the UK runs Kinnettles Tea Garden in Angus, Scotland, where she grows cold-tolerant tea plants. She began experimenting with tea cuttings on her farm in 2007 and has since col...
Oct 14, 2024•26 min
Despite their pivotal roles in advancing healthcare, women’s contributions to medicine have often been overshadowed or erased by male-dominated narratives. Datshiane Navanayagam speaks with two women dedicated to reclaiming this lost history and highlighting the vital work that women have done in the field of medicine. Yunxin Li is a Chinese academic who specializes in the gendered foundations of ancient Chinese medicine. Her research uncovers the often-overlooked contributions of female healers...
Oct 07, 2024•26 min
For decades, the world of driving instructors was largely male dominated. Up until recently not every woman even had the right to drive - that only changed in 2018 when Saudi Arabia lifted their ban on female drivers. Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to two instructors to find out what it takes to teach this skill. Aman Sanghera, a London-based driving instructor, turned to social media during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep teaching and share practical driving tips on her YouTube channel, Clearview D...
Sep 30, 2024•26 min
Glaciers have shaped the world's landscapes and continue to affect earth's climate just as human caused climate change impacts them. Datshiane Navanayagam talks to two women dedicating their lives to the study of these giant ice structures. Jemma Wadham is a glacier biogeochemist and writer whose research has taken her to glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica, Svalbard, Chilean Patagonia, the Peruvian Andes and the Himalaya. She’s particularly interested in glacier-hosted life and the impacts of gla...
Sep 23, 2024•26 min
Women’s magazines collectively reach millions of readers each month. Beyond their influence in fashion, these publications are pivotal in addressing critical women's issues and advocating for empowerment. Datshiane Navanayagam speaks to two magazine editors to explore their approaches to staying relevant in an ever-evolving media landscape. Grace O'Neill began her career at ELLE Australia as an intern and is now the Editor of the magazine. Her work has been featured in publications such as The G...
Sep 16, 2024•26 min
The bra industry is worth billions of dollars a year, yet designs haven't changed a lot since the modern bra came into common use in the early 20th century. Datshiane Navanayagam talks to a sports bra designer from Wales and a breast cancer survivor in the US about their innovative new designs. After a diagnosis of breast cancer in her late 20’s, Dana Donofree took her own experience of struggling to find a bra that was comfortable and pretty to found her own company, AnaOno. With a background i...
Sep 09, 2024•26 min
Children's TV presenters from Ireland and South Africa tell Datshiane Navanayagam about working in television and their love for inspiring young minds. Niamh Ní Chróinín from Ireland is a children's TV presenter for Cúla4, an Irish-language channel that broadcasts exclusively in Gaelic. She is keen to foster a love for Irish culture and language among children. Shudufhadzo Mathagwa is a South African children's TV presenter, model and actor who is passionate about youth empowerment. She currentl...
Sep 02, 2024•26 min
Commercial divers from Canada and Australia share their experiences of working in a dangerous, male-dominated field with Datshiane Navanayagam. Sarah Anvari from Canada is a Dive Supervisor and Welder-Diver at Subsea Global Solutions in Vancouver. She specializes in ship husbandry commercial diving, providing services for commercial shipping, cruise lines, offshore projects, and marine construction. Tiff Allen from Australia is a highly skilled saturation diver. She has extensive experience in d...
Aug 26, 2024•26 min
Traditionally women often take on much of the responsibility for practical and emotional support for a family as well as passing on family knowledge and traditions. But is the role still relevant? Datshiane Navanayagam talks to women from Canada and the UK about being a modern matriarch. All her life, Helen Knott has looked to the strong women in her indigenous community for guidance, absorbed their stories and admired their independence. When her mother and grandmother died she tried to step in...
Aug 19, 2024•26 min
