Looking for Aunt Martha’s Quilt: a BBC World Service radio documentary - and more.
Martha Ann Ricks was born into slavery in Tennessee, the US, but the family bought its freedom and in 1833 emigrated to Liberia. There Martha became a coffee-farmer, weaved a quilt for and met Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, UK.
I had the privilege and joy of working with Beryl, the late Evangeline and Florence on the extraordinary story of their treasured ancestor Aunt Martha. In Liberia, Cousin Alaric took me to where Martha lived. The only thing left is a set of steps. It was very emotional to sit together at the top of those steps, inches away from where Martha would have stitched the quilt depicting a coffee tree, and reflect on her freedom of spirit.
I asked the Quageh quilting group in Liberia to recreate Martha’s Coffee Tree quilt. It’s now in the Museum of Liverpool, UK, where Martha’s ship arrived from Monrovia in 1892.
Knitting in Tripoli: a BBC World Service radio documentary - and more.
In 2011, I travelled to Libya to help Rana Jawad, then the BBC correspondent in Libya, recount the emotional turmoil of the revolution that topped Muammar Gaddafi. We hear tales of resistance - how bullets were moved across Tripoli in handbags and how young women chased away Gaddafi spies pretending to be popcorn sellers. And all will be revealed about the documentary’s title.
Winner of the Best Creative Radio Feature, The AIBs 2012
“intimate and extremely original story-telling layered with solid journalism; creatively provides human context to a tragic international event”
Shivanah’s Story: an AfroQueer podcast.
In 2019, a young lesbian singer-songwriter from Uganda was struggling financially after breaking up with her partner of 6 years. With a child to support, Shivanah was desperate to make ends meet.
And so when a former backup dancer told her that an agent could get her work performing in a club in Dubai, she jumped at the chance.
This is truly a story of survival. A warning: in some parts, the details are graphic and troubling.
Winner - Moment of Dramatic Tension category, 2022 International Women’s Podcast Awards
Unlearning a Dictatorship: The Comb, a BBC podcast
I first met Nana-Jo when we talked for my openDemocracy podcast - and I was so impressed by her that I approached the BBC so that we could focus on her own story.
Nana-Jo Ndow’s father - a Gambian businessman who criticised the then dictator Yahya Jammeh - was abducted and killed in 2013. His body has not been found. Nana-Jo needed answers so she founded an organisation, ANEKED, which campaigns for alleged human rights perpetrators to be brought to trial. She also set up with her cousin Sirra The Memory House - Gambia's first ever memorialisation centre.
The Memory House is a place where focuses on "making the invisible visible", using visual story-telling as a tool to uncover and preserve the history of what happened during Mr Jammeh's rule - and to help the healing process.
Killing the Truth: an openDemocracy podcast, 2022.
Over four episodes, I explore the cases of four remarkable journalists who paid the ultimate price for their uncompromising pursuit of the truth: Regina Martinez in Mexico, Gauri Lankesh in India, Deyda Hydara in The Gambia and Gerry Ortega in The Phillippines.
I speak to family members, friends and colleagues to find out more about who the journalists were and what their work involved. And to the A Safer World for the Truth organisation, which has re-investigated their killings.
At times their stories are heartbreaking and enraging - that such forces for good were killed with impunity - but there’s also hope.
Stravinsky in South Africa: a BBC World Service radio documentary.
My friend Sophie Ribstein once told me that when she first moved to Johannesburg she would go to the state broadcaster to play the French harp, a legacy from the SABC orchestra days. As she played, she saw a set of photos of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky on the walls. She learned that Stravinsky had defied South Africa’s apartheid regime by insisting that he would also perform for a black audience during his 1962 visit .
Out of that conversation came our documentary - presented by conductor Michael Dingaan - of the recollections of the symphony and audience members, including Prince Thethe and Michael Raborifi.
We play for the first time since 1962 the actual recording of that concert - after I stumbled across it in the SABC archives.
What an inspiring journey it was.