--:-- Janet Jaleel: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Saks Off 5th is your secret to fashion's most wanted deals at up to 70% off.
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--:-- Janet Jaleel: In the shadows and flames, primals will fall and from the blood and ash, new gods will rise. Poppy was never meant to awaken and consequences are devastating. Stirring ancient powers from their slumber, transforming Castile and Kirin in ways the fates couldn't foresee. The great conspirator has returned to stop the primal of death. The gods have awakened, harboring blood-soaked secrets, and every choice can undo everything. The primal of Blood and Bone, perfect for fans of Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yaros. Available in print, e-book and audio book.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jaleel and in this edition...
--:-- Janet Jaleel: I can say, oh, it makes me feel great, but it makes me feel like it's tearing me apart and putting me back together. It's the beauty of destruction and bliss. The 35-year-old man who's learning how to read and taking his social media followers on the journey with him. Also... You're kind of acting out things and make sounds like whoop, whoop, whoop and then you all go off with your lawnmowers, weaving in and out of everybody and then everybody's laughing together. Why unleashing your childish side could be good for your health. the lab chimps being given new homes in Liberia and I think I was motivated to make the most of my life by that you know that you've only got one life and make the most.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: We meet Iron Gran the 81 year old swimming cycling and running extreme distances just because she can. When was the last time you learned something new? Oliver James spent most of his life not being able to read. But at the age of 32, he decided to teach himself. And despite being embarrassed about this, he shared the experience on TikTok, gaining hundreds of thousands of followers.
--:-- Oliver James: He spoke to Simran Sohal about getting his first ever book, a gift from his partner, five years ago. It just literally opened up one door for me to go, hold on, why don't you just read? I still have the book. It's 365 Quotes to Live Your Life by, by R.C. Rebladel. It changed my life. It also brought me closer to understanding, like, this is a journey.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: When I first went to school, I had some, kind of like some learning issues and some behavioural health issues. So they placed me into a special needs class with the ADHD and the hypertension deficit disorder. It was really hard for me to focus and pay attention and, you know, just be a participant in class. They had a program. It was more on like restraining and, you know, get me to behave in class. It kind of took away from my learning.
--:-- Oliver James: What made you decide you wanted to learn to read at 32? It's never one thing, but I think once I hit like in my 30s, it started to kind of think in like, okay, all of the tools I was using, you learn how to, you know, to make it, you learn how to build a structure on how to take care of yourself, even though you struggle at reading or struggle at math.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: It was like different things like, oh, I want to learn to read so I can take a girl on a date or I want to be able to message people. But all of these things accumulated to like, okay, you want to learn how to have independence, freedom, you know, take care of yourself. When I first booked a flight, my partner had to book flight for me. Those things started to sink in. I was getting job offers to travel and I can't read the emails or book the flights. I'm like, I need to learn how to read so I can do at least these basic things.
--:-- Oliver James: And what made you want to start documenting your journey on TikTok? I don't know completely. You know, I was feeling inside that I wanted to stop having the shame and the pain about not knowing how to read. I just didn't know how to go about it. One day I came into the house and I was talking to my partner and she's like telling her all this stuff. You I was real big into fitness stuff. And I was posting everything about fitness. I was telling her about my normal me, but the social media scene, the fitness stuff. And she was like, well, why don't you just show them you tell them that you're working on reading? So I literally went to the camera that same day, one in my car, turned on the video. And I was like, what's up? I can't read.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: It changed everything. It was just like doors started to just open. I think that's the best part about this is that I'm telling them as I go along. Right now, I just got to read an evaluation. My spelling's at a fourth grade level and my reading's at a fifth grade level. And I'll be doing tutoring lessons two hours a day for five days a week like school what advice would you give to someone who wants to learn how to read lean into the struggle i know that might sound really simple but for when i started learning how to read it was all about like finish a book read a book read a book you know you start a race you want to finish it type thing you don't you forget the fact that you signed up lean into the to the parts where it's just like i don't even know what's going on good that you're right where you need to be i don't even know what i'm reading good i don't even know what these words say it looks like gibberish good like it's like just keep going Like you don't have to know what you're doing.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: That's not the object, I guess you say, objective of the learning to read. You know, I'm writing a book right now, so that should be coming out. And I'm hoping that that becomes like, you know, like, you know, I see these books and they say like New York's best time seller or something. I don't know. I don't even know what the heck that means, but I know it's good. And I'm like, I want to be one of those. One of the other big things I want to do is I'm trying to get into college. I'm working on like how I can go to like a college. I want to figure out like how to get an education that I was kind of like I didn't really learn. And like, I didn't really get the education in the format of like sitting in a class and learning, seeing people and seeing teachers and seeing like students and enjoying things and being a participant. Those are like some of my biggest goals and learn my independence, learn how to take care of myself, being able to stand on my own two feet, have my own, you know, structure of how I'm taking care of myself as an adult.
--:-- Oliver James: How does reading make you feel? I can give you a very cliche answer and I can say, oh, it makes me feel great. But it makes me feel like it's tearing me apart and putting me back together. It's the beauty of destruction and bliss. There's books that rip me into pieces and I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, I don't know if I can handle this. But then it heals a part of me that has been missing for so long to a non-reader. They'll be like, what is he talking about? But that's the beauty. find out what I'm talking about because it'll open up things in your mind that you can't even explain to the out of your mouth like the words can't even explain it.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Now what if there was a way to improve mental and heart health boost immunity and improve sleep with minimal effort and all for free? Well fans of laughter yoga say there is and it's all just a session away. The laughter yoga movement, which celebrates its 30th birthday this year, was started by Dr. Madan Kataria in Mumbai, whose research found we can reap the health benefits even when we're only pretending to laugh. And this week we had World Laughter Day.
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So what better time for our reporter Stephanie Prentice to speak to Kerry Sanson, an expert in the field, who's out to convert even more people this summer. So often we leave laughter to chance. And we all remember that time when we had a good belly laugh with a friend. But laughing within a group is such a good opportunity to make connections, to feel safe.
--:-- Kerry Sanson: And we have this thing in laughter yoga where you fake it till you make it. And the body doesn't know the difference between fake laughter and real laughter. So you get the benefits from laughing through laughter yoga because we start off by encouraging the laughter to come and then sure enough after a while it becomes natural
--:-- Stephanie Prentice: So in practice is it people doing a normal yoga session and you're amusing them and you're telling them jokes or is it a physical thing that you're doing to provoke the laughter?
--:-- Kerry Sanson: We have a little warm-up in moving the body a little bit we have this clapping and chanting so there's a wonderful chant which is ho ho ha ha and we get everybody to get going with the chants whilst clapping the hands. And everyone's encouraged to have like eye contact with each other. We then create the laughter by having little exercises. You're kind of acting out things like pretending to start a lawnmower and make sounds like whoop, whoop, whoop. And then you all go off with your lawnmowers across the room and you're weaving in and out of everybody laughing as you're pushing your imaginary lawnmower.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: And we've probably all heard the phrase contagious laughter, but that is the thing, isn't it? There's lots of scientific research within laughter and that's why the founder, Dr. Madan Kataria, he looked at the research, he's a medical doctor, and he realised that the benefits from laughter, there were so many of them, and yes, this contagious thing of when you hear people laughing.
--:-- Kerry Sanson: For me, I think it's allowing the childlike playfulness. And a couple of years ago, I did a session with international refugees. So we didn't have any language to communicate with. But that's the wonderful thing. You don't need a language because we're not relying on a sense of humor. We're not relying on jokes.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: I'm at the Wilderness Festival this year doing some laughter yoga. it's going to be a room of 50 people all saying yes yes to coming together and laughing and just having that freedom and no expectations and just just going with it and there has been research into how laughter yoga can do things like boost immunity how do you think that works
--:-- Kerry Sanson: We are releasing all the stress hormones from the body and we're inducing endorphins so the immunity is boosted as well because we have all these these happy hormones going around the body and we're coming also into it's a rest and repair if you like we're allowing that stress to drop away and that the body can come into this to this healing mode because it's feeling full of all the good stuff
--:-- Janet Jaleel: So what about to the people listening that maybe couldn't imagine acting out a lawnmower what would you say to those people that want to try but might feel a bit embarrassed or a bit nervous?
--:-- Kerry Sanson: I think because it's a communal thing and that everybody's doing it at the same time. There's no individuals in it. It's like everybody's in it together, clapping, we're laughing, we're breathing. And I've seen people start off, you know, quite shy, maybe on the outsides. But after a while, once they realise what's going on, you can see they just get in with it.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Dr. Madan Kataria. Right, we've decided we'll be holding a Happy Pod laughter yoga session as soon as possible in the office. Please email our boss at globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk to help us get approval.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Let's head to West Africa now and a project that's providing new homes for a group of chimpanzees. They'd been brought to a lab in Liberia by a research company. Then, when the firm quit, the animals were abandoned on a collection of river islands. Local people cared for them before a charity stepped in to build dedicated facilities on the islands. Jacob Evans has the story.
--:-- Jacob Evans: For decades, they were experimented on, before being dumped on six tiny islands dotted across the estuary of this remote Liberian river. But for this handful of chimpanzees, today marks the start of a brand new chapter. They're being brought to the mainland, where they'll soon be joined by the 50 or so other chimps living along the island chain, while brand new, bespoke facilities are built for them back on their islands, for them to live out the rest of their days in peace.
--:-- Katie Conley: Back in 1974, a US-based research organization was interested in doing experimentation on chimpanzees. And they chose to start a laboratory in Liberia and started taking chimpanzees from the wild, buying them from people who had them as pets, creating this colony to use for experimentation. and they ended up in the mid-2000s deciding they no longer want to do experimentation on the chimpanzees. And that is when they placed different groups on these six different estuary islands.
--:-- Jacob Evans: Many of the chimps are old and suffer from long-term health issues because of their trauma, so they can't be assimilated into the mainland populations. The new homes will have shelter for extreme weather and dedicated veterinary facilities so that they can be treated on the islands. There'll also be new food preparation and administrative facilities, all of which have to be chimpanzee proof. They still will have access to the large islands that they always have.
--:-- Dr. Richard Sasunia: I mean, that's what's interesting about this project. Most sanctuaries start with an enclosure and then look to expand to let the chimpanzees out into a more natural environment. And in this case, they already had that natural environment where they were living like chimpanzees, building nests and roaming where they want.
--:-- Jacob Evans: Sedating and transporting dozens of chimps while protecting their well-being is certainly not an easy operation And sometimes you need the chimps to help you out. We had Will, we had Honey and Goofy as the two adult females and then Bean as well as the two juvenile boys Honey, she took on the responsibility of comforting everybody in the group Telling them it's all going to be okay, it's going to be okay She had a calming effect
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Humane World for Animals have made a pledge to care for these chimpanzees for the rest of their lives So getting this process underway is an important moment I feel so privileged to be part of this project To be part of the team that has made it happen And ultimately, you know, the chimps are the ultimate winners in all this. This is a milestone, you know, the icing on the cake.
--:-- Jacob Evans: That was Dr. Richard Sasunia ending that report by Jacob Evans.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Still to come in this podcast, how tackling inequality in scientific research could save lives around the globe. If you understand cancer in Africa, you actually also further your understanding of cancer in Europeans, in Asians, in Latin Americans.
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--:-- Janet Jaleel: Go on get a little out there into the big heart of Nevada where you can go off and off the map on two lakes or on horseback Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts. Climb a mountain or make your best effort. See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies. Stake out haunted hotels. Can you make it to sunrise? There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be. Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com.
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--:-- Janet Jaleel: Now, community centers are often seen as the lifeblood of neighborhoods, but in Syria, a country scarred by over a decade of civil war, they've become much more than that a vital lifeline the bar seba center in homs is one of many that have continued to operate offering counseling education and support ella bicknell has been speaking with motaz meno one of the center's coordinators and najoud mahmoud whose local center just outside aleppo helped her start her own sewing business
--:-- Motaz Menno: Aman Community Center in Al-Khadiyye The center provided us with services during a time where we all needed especially the families in the neighborhood It also availed many opportunities to us all The moment I received the equipment I had everything I needed to start working sewing clothes for children, for men and for women and I do see that I'm running a successful project.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: That is remarkable resilience, Najoud. All of this through more than 13 years of civil war in Syria. Tell me more about how that has affected you. Since I was 16 years old, I used to do some work in Sioux. I used to do it as a hobby, but then the war came and we had to be displaced several times. me, my family, and my children. I had to leave the thing that I used to love. After we went back home and we got through the phase of the war, the first thing I thought of was to go back to the thing I loved to do. Then it became something that I had to do. My husband and my son were injured, so at the same time, I had to think of a way that I could also support the family and to help them as well.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: This gave me a push to think about running my own business and to lead it myself. And thank God, now I can say I'm happy with this. And to bring you in, Motaz, you run a similar community centre in Homs. Tell me about the services you provide there. As a community centre, we work as an information hub. When someone arrives to their hometown, they find everything is different. We provide this information to them through our counselling or external referrers to other NGOs within our local area.
--:-- Motaz Menno: We provide psychosocial support, but we also provide counselling based on gender-based violence, and we provide child protection services to unify the people who came back to our city to mainstream integration, you can say. And as the country adapts to new leadership, what are your hopes for the future, both for yourselves and your respective community centres?
--:-- Janet Jaleel: I really hope that similar projects to the one I benefited from continue, because the majority of people need them. And I know a lot of other women who truly need such projects, and they are waiting for their chances, just like I got my chance. Our hopes is to build our communities back to their original status. That's our biggest hope. We hope also to be able to provide a much better quality of life.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Do you think you can do it? Yep, we can.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Maudaz Menno and Najoud Mahmoud speaking to Ella Bicknell about their hopes for Syria's future.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Now to a man who's dedicated his life to helping develop cancer treatments which work better for African people. Decades of bias in the way medical research is carried out means that new medicines, as well as the tools used to diagnose some conditions, are mainly tested on people of European heritage. This can lead to treatments not working as well for those not represented in the research.
--:-- Dr. Yao Bidiako: I had for a long time focused my research on infectious diseases like malaria and so on. But when my dad got cancer, I realised that, you know what, cancer is also a problem in Africa, but it's a problem that we don't hear very much about. Cancer currently already kills more people than malaria does. And it's not just about rising numbers. Cancer behaves differently in different populations, and that matters when it comes to treatment.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: But because most cancer research today focuses on people of European descent, we know far less about these differences. Cancer is a genetic disease. And so to understand cancer, you need to understand the host or the person with cancer. And there is growing evidence that people of African descent in particular, certain cancers appear to be much more aggressive. Black women are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: But this isn't just an issue that affects people in Africa. It actually touches on people of African descent from all around the world. If we take all the genomic data that we have in the world, 78 to 80 percent of it will come from people of European descent. Less than 3 percent will come from people of African descent. And less than 1 percent will come from people on the African continent.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: And if data doesn't include people from Africa, then scientists are missing vital clues about how cancer behaves and how to treat it effectively. However, this is exactly what Dr. Bidiako's company, Yemachi, is trying to change. So what we are trying to do is generate more data so that we can narrow that gap. Actually going out and recruiting patients with cancer and generating genomic data, sequencing their genomes.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: A bit of science here. Genome sequencing is basically reading our DNA. So these are the instructions that make us who we are. Understanding those genetic instructions that helps scientists spot patterns like which mutations could lead to cancer And to gather that data Dr. Bidiako and his team have partnered with hospitals in nine countries across Africa Tunisia, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: We've been doing this for just around, you know, just under five years. So far, we have probably recruited close to 2,000 people with cancer across different projects. In the next three to three and a half years, Yamachi will hopefully have generated 15,000 genomes from people with cancer. And as a collection, we'll represent the largest single collection of African genomes. The idea is that this data could then be used to develop better tools for diagnosing cancer, as well as treatments that work better for African people.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: And hopefully we will catch cancer very early. And so then at a time when it is much more easy to treat. And that will mean that we'll have many more cancer survivors. Dr. Vidiako hopes that what they find in this data could transform cancer care not just in Africa, but around the world. The truth about the African continent is that it is the most genetically diverse population on the planet. And it is where our species evolved from.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: So the best example I can give is a big bowl of M&Ms of different colours. Every colour you can imagine is in Africa. If you understand cancer in Africa, you actually also further your understanding of cancer in Europeans, in Asians, in Latin Americans, because at a genetic level, they all trace their ancestry back to their continent.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Pharmaceutical companies are starting to take notice, paying for access to the data that Dr. Bidiako and his team are collecting. Dr. Bidiako's vision is starting to become a reality. What do you think your late father would say if he could see some of the work that you've done today? Well, I hope he'd be proud. I believe he would be. I think he'd be most proud of the fact that I'm building something here. So looking to make a contribution to the global discourse around cancer.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: That was Dr Yao Bidiako. And you can hear more on people fixing the world wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: an Ironman competition is something most of us would find impossible at any age a four kilometer swim then a 180 kilometer bike ride followed by a full marathon even just one of those requires amazing levels of fitness so it's all the more impressive then that Edwina or Eddie Brocklesby is still taking part, wait for this, at the age of 81.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: She's been talking to Katie Smith. I think that it motivates not only me, but, you know, a lot of other old people in the charity, older people in the charity that I run. You know that it's not too late to get out there and get active and be sociable.
--:-- Eddie Brocklesby: I didn't do anything at all until I was 50, 51. I went up to watch a friend doing a marathon and I was totally motivated by that. And I came back and said to my husband, you know, I'd love to do that half marathon. I think it was. And he said, you couldn't even go three miles into Northampton. And that was true. And I think it was that challenge that got me going. And I did.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: And how did it progress? Because I think there's a lot of people who will be listening right now who will think, well, a half marathon up to an Ironman. That's quite a big leap to make. So what was the progress through to that point?
--:-- Eddie Brocklesby: What motivated me, I think, was that my oldest son was doing an Ironman down in Lanzarote. And I think it was sort of waiting for him to come around the corner when he was doing the marathon. But and that was the bit that I thought, you know, I'm going to have a go at this. so how do you take i mean literally your first step into it for some people it's it's such a huge prospect in your mind isn't it a marathon a huge swim a massive massive cycle how do you address that how do you begin
--:-- Janet Jaleel: I think the key one was the swimming i couldn't swim um you know i just about manage a width of the water breaststroking so actually to really learn to swim that late on was a critical thing. But before that, yes, I had done a bit more running from the age of 50-odd onwards. So, yes, I didn't do triathlon until I could swim a bit. And to actually get out the swim and finish, you know, the swim was absolutely key for me. And then the rest of it's fun, you know, to get out on the bike and closed roads.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Do you think that you're ever underestimated, Eddie, because of your age? When you go to events like the half marathon that you've done recently, do you think people look at you and think, oh, gosh, does she need extra help? Does she need some support? Because she is she is a bit older.
--:-- Eddie Brocklesby: Well, as I came through, I did tell the commentator as I went under, you know, I was 82. I think it was going to be the following day or something like that. But yes, I mean, it is fun to be older and people say what?
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Friends of yours who are who are similar ages they must look at you and think wow this you know maybe a slight bit of envy there for how how active you've been and how much you've you've looked after your body but what advice do you have for for people who may be starting to feel like they're struggling to keep so active things are creaking a little bit you know starting to get harder.
--:-- Eddie Brocklesby: And I think it is to get as active as you can, but also offer the sociability that makes a difference too, to get out in the fresh air, to go for a walk, whatever pace with other people is vital, I think, because you know that ticks several boxes. And so I would encourage everyone to get out. We always try to build in a social element so people meet up socially and and then preferably cupboard tea or coffee after.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Fantastic. Oh, sorry, that thinks I'm still walking. Can you hear it? Is that your watch talking to you? Let me tell it so shut up. Sorry.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: Hard to believe she's 81. That was Eddie Brocklesby, and it just goes to show it's never too late.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: And you can hear more inspiring sports stories like that on Not By The Playbook wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: And that's all from The Happy Pod for now. But if you have a happy or inspiring story to share, we'd love to hear from you. Just email us or send a voice note to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. And you can now watch some of our interviews on YouTube. Just search for The Happy Pod.
--:-- Janet Jaleel: This edition was mixed by Chris Ablakwa. The producers were Holly Gibbs and Rachel Buckley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jaleel. Until next time, goodbye.
