Necessary Rebels Sandra

In this episode we talk to Meera Bhogal who runs healthy eating and wellbeing classes for menopausal women of South Asian descent, as well as healthy eating brand Made from Scratch. When Meera started to develop symptoms of menopause at the age of 40, she didn’t know where to turn for advice. She’s since implemented free menopause training to support women in the workplace and is committed to opening up the conversation about menopause in South Asian communities. 'I’ve often been told that menopause is a myth and that it is a white person’s disease. I have no idea where this comes from but I ask myself whether this is because the people shouting about menopause are not looking like them?'

Meet Swiss, best known as a member of BRIT and MOBO award-winning group So Solid Crew, who rose to fame in the early 2000s. And now most recently, the  creator of Black Pound Day.  BPD first launched in the wake of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement on June 27 2020 and takes place on the first Saturday of every month. It encourages the community to buy from Black-owned businesses and services for the day. 'Black Pound Day is a positive initiative that is helping rebalance the discrimination that we face as Black people.' Are you buying Black? 

You can find out more about BPD here. 

#BlackPoundDay 

In this episode we sit down with Tashan Jordan to talk about mental health, being released from QPR football academy and racism faced on the job. 

Yomi is a poet, playwright, facilitator, and recipient of the 2019 Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship. He is known by the public thanks to his acclaimed one-man show titled COAT, which has been performed at Brighton festival and the Last Word festival, among other spaces. He also curates an online blog platform for fathers and guardians called ‘Daddy Diaries’.  In this episode we speak to Yomi about all things 'Manorism' which is also the name of his poetry collection due out Oct. 2022. There are some real emotional bits here so hang on to your seat.

In our first episode back we talk with Esther, a social worker and team manager with experience in working in child protection, and children's safeguarding about Child Q, as she is called, a 15 year old girl who was made to remove her clothing, underwear and a sanitary pad, spread her buttocks and cough when her teachers accused her of smelling of cannabis. After they failed to find drugs on her, Metropolitan police officers were called into the school to conduct a strip search .  Let us be clear - this was not a strip search! It was assault and we are outraged! 

If you are a professional working with young black girls consider what this story is telling other young black girls about how they should feel about those in authority who should be there to protect them. 

Nina Malone is  a Talent Agent at IAG and Founder of Dope Black Mums movement, a digital safe space for black women to navigate motherhood together. Dope Black Mums does amazing work supporting Black mothers and their families, and I’m really excited to be chatting to Nina about her work, parenting, and what it means to be a Dope Black Mum.