--:-- Jannat Jalil: 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.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: On the hunt for designer steals that'll turn heads and leave a trail of envy? Uncover Gucci, Valentino, Versace, Stuart Weitzman and more. With new arrivals dropping weekly at prices too good to stay confidential.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Lux layers, statement boots and tailored essentials from Saks Off 5th will put your wardrobe on the most wanted list. Head to SaksOff5th.com or SaksOff5th store near you for a style lineup you won't want to miss.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Go on, get a little out there, into the big heart of Nevada, where you can go off-road 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?
--:-- Jannat Jalil: There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be. Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com
--:-- Jannat Jalil: This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Jannat Jalil and in this edition...
--:-- Jannat Jalil: We sat and had a very good conversation about life and it was enough to break the crisis that was in and I ended up marrying the man that I say saved my life.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: The couple who found each other in a dark moment.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Also, Besides my father, I got a younger sister and a family. I went to Darbar Sahib with my father and thanked God. I'm very happy.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: The emotional reunion of a father and son after not seeing each other for 19 years.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: And, We meet every week And we know each other so well that we can talk about any subject under the sun.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: The group of friends that have met at the same spot for more than five decades.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: We start here in the UK with an act of kindness that gradually evolved into deep love.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: In 2019, 33-year-old Charlotte from the north of England decided she'd had enough of her life and decided to end it close to a railway station in West Yorkshire.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: But David Lay, who was working as a train driver that day, found her in crisis and took the time to talk things through with Charlotte until she felt comfortable enough to move on.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: Years later, they got married.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: The Happy Pod's Holly Gibbs has this report and just a warning, this piece contains references to mental health, but there is a happy ending.
--:-- Charlotte: A man got off the train and approached me and asked if I was having a bad day.
--:-- Charlotte: And we sat and had a very good conversation about life.
--:-- Charlotte: And it was enough to break the crisis that I was in.
--:-- Charlotte: And I ended up marrying the man that I say saved my life that day.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: Charlotte is talking about Dave, a train operator for the English company Northern, who talked things through with her in her lowest moments.
--:-- Dave: I think we sat at the spot for probably half an hour, maybe, and then just eventually got onto the train and got into the platform where we were greeted by the British Transport Police.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: After that, the pair went their separate ways.
--:-- Charlotte: But the following day, Charlotte became desperate to thank the driver and started to track him down.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: I decided I wanted to find the man who'd been so kind with me and took to Facebook to ask if anybody knew anybody who worked for Northern.
--:-- Charlotte: Somebody messaged me saying they worked for Northern.
--:-- Charlotte: Is there something particularly could help me with?
--:-- Charlotte: And I explained the situation that happened the day before and they said they knew the driver.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: I would ask the driver if he was OK with sharing details.
--:-- Charlotte: and within 15 minutes I had his name and number and the rest is very much history.
--:-- Dave: Dave was equally as relieved to hear from Charlotte.
--:-- Dave: He had already contacted the police who looked after her to find out if she was safe.
--:-- Dave: From my point, I needed to know that the person that was on the track was well, to have that opportunity to make that difference and, yeah, someone will still be here and to be able to go home to the family was a massive thing for me.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: Two months after their first text exchange, they met for coffee and their relationship grew from there.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: In 2022, the couple got married while Charlotte was 22 weeks pregnant.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: They're now a family of five.
--:-- Charlotte: This is why Charlotte wanted to share her story.
--:-- Charlotte: Life can and does get better and you have to be here to see it and we need to be reaching in to people we care about, colleagues, friends, family.
--:-- Charlotte: We need to be having conversations.
--:-- Charlotte: It doesn't need to be anything special or life-changing advice.
--:-- Charlotte: Just a general conversation is often enough to get people talking.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: In 2020, there was another twist to the pair's love story.
--:-- Dave: I was diagnosed with testicular cancer after he went to the GP with a bad back.
--:-- Dave: He is adamant he wouldn't have gone to the doctors if it wasn't for Charlotte's insistence.
--:-- Dave: Weeks later, Dave was given the all clear.
--:-- Dave: He says it's thanks to Charlotte.
--:-- Charlotte: Charlotte may say that I saved her life but Charlotte also saved my life as well.
--:-- Holly Gibbs: That was David and Charlotte Lay talking to Holly Gibbs.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: We've probably all lost touch in some way with friends or relatives but imagine if you finally managed to meet up with a parent or child you hadn't seen for 19 years.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Well that's what happened to a man from Japan.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: He managed to trace his father in India and their reunion was a very emotional one, as Ravinder Singh Robin from BBC Punjabi reports.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: This was the moment that a son from Osaka in Japan reunited with his father, who lives in India's Punjab, after a long gap of 19 years.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: It seems like a dream.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I wish it to never end.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I can't believe.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Yeah, dream.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: It's dream.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: It's my brother.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I can't believe.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Yeah.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: The story of Sukhpal Singh's meeting with Rin's mother was like something from a movie.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I met Rin's mother at Thailand Airport.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: She was coming to India to visit Taj Mahal.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: In the plane, we had our seats together.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I just asked her if she's interested, I can take her to visit Vaga, Atari Border and Golden Temple.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: She trusted me and agreed and then she visited Amritsar.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I took her to Golden Temple.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: She stayed with my family for 15-20 days.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: She went back and sent sponsorship documents.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I visited Japan in 2002 for the first time.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: We got married there and Rin was born in 2003.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: But the couple struggled to make the relationship work and eventually got divorced when Rin was about two years old.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I started living there but I was young then to understand responsibilities.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: There were relationship issues.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I returned to India.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: She came to India and took me back to Japan
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: It was in 2004
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: And Rin was about 18 months old
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Things did not work between us
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: And we got separated
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I never met Rin again
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: After returning to India from Japan in 2007 Sukhbal lost contact with his son and later remarried and had a daughter
--:-- Rin Takahata: Rin Takahata recounts the moment he decided to find his father.
--:-- Rin Takahata: I realized I didn't know anything about my father and then I started talking to my mother about him.
--:-- Rin Takahata: She showed me his picture.
--:-- Rin Takahata: I was interested in India before.
--:-- Rin Takahata: I had looked up Sikhism.
--:-- Rin Takahata: I wasn't sure if it is true, but I heard a lot of people share my surname, Singh.
--:-- Rin Takahata: I decided to search more on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, searched his name.
--:-- Rin Takahata: But so many people with this name came up.
--:-- Rin Takahata: So I thought, oh, maybe it's impossible.
--:-- Rin Takahata: But I remembered I had a letter from him when I was three years old.
--:-- Rin Takahata: And on it was his old address.
--:-- Rin Takahata: So I tried Google.
--:-- Rin Takahata: Rin came to India and went to the village with an old photograph of his father.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: My father friends.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I know this man.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Yes.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: You know this man?
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Yes.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: A shopkeeper in the area recognised him and helped Rin to find his father's house.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: You know where?
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: You want to meet?
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Yes.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Right now?
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Yes.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Your photo, when you was just two years, I think.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Just two days ago, I was looking at this.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: For Sukhpal Singh, his reunion with his son is still like a sweet dream that he does not want to let go.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I was waiting for this for 19 years.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Every day, Facebook, Reen Takahata, Sadiya Takahata, Jeeva, every day, your sister, Instagram.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: And his 14-year-old daughter, Avleen, will remember this Rakhi for a lifetime.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I'm very happy because I always used to think that I should also have a brother.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: People often used to ask me, are you a single child?
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: I have cousins.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: But then cousins are cousins.
--:-- Ravinder Singh Robin: Now there is a vibe of real siblings.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Now to a story of lifelong friendship.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: 56 years to be exact.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Dick, Ken, Paul, Brian, Bill and Peter have met every Thursday night in the White Swan Pub in Yorkshire, Northern England since 1968.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: The group, who are now all in their early 80s, say they've only missed two dozen or so meetups over the years.
--:-- Joe Inwood: Our reporter, Joe Inwood, went to the pub in Sheffield and started by asking Ken how it all began.
--:-- Ken: I think it was Paul and myself who was responsible for getting this thing going.
--:-- Ken: What it was, we were studying for a degree in metallurgy and we got Wednesday afternoons off and we used to go playing golf.
--:-- Ken: And from that we used to go for a drink and then others joined us until eventually we settled on a Thursday night and that was 56 years ago.
--:-- Dick: Dick, you've been coming all of this time.
--:-- Dick: How much has this group and this friendship meant to you?
--:-- Dick: I mean, because we meet every week.
--:-- Dick: It's not as though there's a month goes by before we see each other.
--:-- Dick: But we meet every week and we know each other so well that we can talk about any subjects under the sun.
--:-- Joe Inwood: Now, I was going to bring in Peter.
--:-- Peter: You're often the unofficial spokesman of the group.
--:-- Peter: Tell me the subjects that you guys talk about how have they changed over the years and what do you talk about i mean it's a lot of it's about health nowadays but yeah we we can talk about absolutely anything now during the covid pandemic obviously things were slightly different but you guys you continued your weekly meetups on zoom and we've got here the agenda some of the things were being discussed tell me about that period.
--:-- Peter: Well it was great because what we were able to do is some of the lads who had moved away to Australia and Pennsylvania, etc.
--:-- Peter: We brought them in during the Covid time.
--:-- Peter: So we used to have a meet every week, every Thursday, like we've always done.
--:-- Peter: But it got a bit disjointed because everybody were wanting to talk over Zoom.
--:-- Peter: So I wrote an agenda and I used to have some subjects that I'd introduce each week and then everybody could bring another subject in if they wanted.
--:-- Joe Inwood: You guys set a really interesting example for young men now in how to have deep friendships, deep male friendships.
--:-- Joe Inwood: What lessons do you think people can draw on your experiences and the friendships that you guys have found?
--:-- Bill: I'll tell you what, I'll bring in Bill for this one.
--:-- Bill: The friendships that you guys have maintained over 56 years.
--:-- Bill: Well, Peter and myself went to school together.
--:-- Bill: We left school, worked for the same company together, went to night school.
--:-- Bill: and after night school, three nights a week and the rest of the week, we went out knocked about together.
--:-- Bill: We didn't have phones, we didn't have even landline phones.
--:-- Bill: So we just made arrangements and stuck to the arrangements that we made.
--:-- Bill: And we had, I think, the best years that you could possibly have.
--:-- Bill: Rock and roll.
--:-- Paul: Paul, how much does it mean to you to have this friendship?
--:-- Paul: Oh, very, very much indeed.
--:-- Paul: I mean, it's a fundamental part of our lives.
--:-- Paul: I mean, here, they're all comics, this lot.
--:-- Paul: They're all comics, and equally, they're all competitive.
--:-- Paul: But the week goes on, and we all go away, and we have our lives in the week, and we know that Thursday is a time when we can just move away from that.
--:-- Paul: We can come and discuss football or whatever.
--:-- Paul: It's relaxing, it's separate, and it's totally engaging.
--:-- Paul: And in no way is it sort of a problem to our wives.
--:-- Paul: They know that we're going, and it just is fitting.
--:-- Paul: It fits into the calendar of the week.
--:-- Brian: Brian, I'll just bring you in finally.
--:-- Brian: How much does this all mean to you, this friendship?
--:-- Brian: It means a lot because I can sit here and listen to people talking.
--:-- Brian: And I've learned a lot since I've joined this group.
--:-- Joe Inwood: A group of friends there talking to Jo Inwood.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Coming up in this podcast...
--:-- Jannat Jalil: We've sort of found these threads where things are joined abstractly or directly, and it's a really joyous exploration of different cultures.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: European classical and African folk music are combined, celebrating their unifying power.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Gimmicks, owned and operated in the USA.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Moto Casino is a free-to-play social casino.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: No purchase necessary.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: 21 plus to play.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Void where prohibited.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Sign up today for a generous welcome bonus.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Moto Casino.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: American Social Casino.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Download the Moto Casino app today.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Go on.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Get a little out there.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Into the big heart of Nevada.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Where you can go off-road and off the map.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: On two lakes or on horseback.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Climb a mountain.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: or make your best effort.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Stake out haunted hotels.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Can you make it to sunrise?
--:-- Jannat Jalil: There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be.
--:-- Jannat Jalil: Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Hi I Cindy Crawford and I the founder of Meaningful Beauty
--:-- Cindy Crawford: When Dr Sabah and I decided to do a skincare line together he said to me we are going to give women meaningful beauty.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: And I said, that's exactly right.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: We want to give women meaningful beauty, which means each and every product is meaningful.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: It has a reason to exist.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: It's efficacious.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: You're going to get results.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: And then you just go out and live your life.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Meaningful Beauty.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Confidence is beautiful.
--:-- Cindy Crawford: Learn more at MeaningfulBeauty.com.
--:-- Voiceover: According to a nationwide survey conducted by GeneSight, nearly 9 in 10 Americans who've been diagnosed with depression or anxiety believe that mental health medications are somewhat or very effective.
--:-- Voiceover: However, despite that belief, more than half of those individuals say they have avoided taking medication due to concerns about potential side effects.
--:-- Voiceover: That's why Dr. Whitney Brown, a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner based in Alabama, often recommends genetic testing to our patients as part of their treatment journey.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: As part of my treatment plan, I offer the GeneSight test, which analyzes how a patient's genes may influence how they metabolize or respond to certain mental health medications.
--:-- Dr. Whitney Brown: It gives me insights and takes out some of the guesswork that can be associated with prescribing them.
--:-- Voiceover: If you or someone you love is facing challenges with depression or anxiety, talk to your doctor about how genetic testing may help.
--:-- Voiceover: To learn more, visit genesight.com.
--:-- Voiceover: That's genesight.com.
--:-- Voiceover: In October, Pakistan became the latest country to eliminate the eye disease trachoma.
--:-- Voiceover: The infection affects millions of people around the world.
--:-- Voiceover: It can be extremely painful and can cause blindness and visual impairment if left untreated.
--:-- Voiceover: With the help of the NGO Sightsavers and the country's government, health workers in Pakistan have now found a way to combat the spread there.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: I spoke to him and started by saying that he must be proud of his achievement.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: It is a great pleasure and a great proud moment and honour for all of us, all the team who worked day and night for the almost two and a half decades.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: You know, the WHO announced Pakistan as a trachoma-free country and the public health problem as a trachoma is no more in Pakistan.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: The WHO being the World Health Organization.
--:-- Voiceover: So tell us how you were able to achieve this.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: So unfortunately, like other endemic countries where this trachoma prevailed, Pakistan was among them.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: The magnitude of this disease, if we were not able to eliminate trachoma well in time, there were chances of 3.7 million people of affected areas to become blind of this infectious blinding disease, which we call trachoma.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: That is a huge number.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: And it's easily transmitted, isn't it?
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: With poor hygiene or overcrowded conditions, people touch their faces and they can pass on the disease that way.
--:-- Voiceover: So what did doctors do to try to stop that spread?
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: The transmission is exactly with a contact and this prevailed in those pockets where very hard to reach.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: And usually this disease prevailed from the poorest pocket of that community where it is endemic.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: For the trachoma, the standard and the protocol is, you know, the SAFE strategy.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: SAFE is nothing but S-A-F-E.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: S stands for the surgery.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: Whenever there is a repeated infection of the, specifically the upper eyelid, we perform a surgery on those cases, which having inward turn of the eyelashes, which we call trichesis.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: The perks of this surgery is definitely first to relieve the pain.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: And the second important is that it will not further deteriorate the condition.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: Otherwise, if we don't do surgery, he will get blind totally.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: The second element of the safe is the antibiotics.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: Antibiotic we give for the active infection, you know.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: The third pillar is face wash, like facial hygiene, the personal hygiene.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: And last but not the least, that is the environmental change.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: It's nothing but having a good sanitation wherever there is a clean water scarcity, the trachoma prevail will be there definitely.
--:-- Voiceover: This is quite an achievement because you've managed to do this in one of the countries with one of the biggest populations in the world.
--:-- Voiceover: And I gather that it's also become a disease that has been eradicated from India, which has the largest population in the world, Pakistan's neighbour.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: Yeah, this is again a proud moment, you know, because we are 19 in the list who eliminated the trachoma from the country.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: And I congratulate my neighbouring country, exactly, India.
--:-- Voiceover: So now the list from 19 goes to 21, you know.
--:-- Voiceover: That is, I mean, it's a great achievement.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: And you want to increase that number, don't you?
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: You want to make this a club that expands from 19 to 21 to bring in all the countries that suffer from an easily preventable tropical disease like this one.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: If we are able and if we succeed to have a very good collaboration, very good partnership with all the global health communities.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: If you don't do these efforts, because this initiative is not enough to eliminate trachoma from one country or from another country, because our major main objective and main goal is to eliminate trachoma globally, because if one country eliminates and another country does not work any effort and they don't put any effort, that public health problem again, again will raise and those part of world where This disease has been eliminated, so this will again re-occur.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: And that is again, again disaster.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: It will be a great disaster.
--:-- Voiceover: Do you think that's a goal that's achievable in your lifetime, the global eradication of trachoma?
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: Yeah, I mean, you have to, for me, it's not that not achievable because the word impossible says that I am possible, you know.
--:-- Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir: Dr. Junaid Faisal Wazir.
--:-- Myra Anubi: For many men, mental health can sometimes be a taboo subject and getting help for stress and anxiety can be hard to come by.
--:-- Myra Anubi: So an NGO in Kenya called Sentim Scientific has come up with an idea to break down barriers.
--:-- Myra Anubi: They've been using some of Kenya's best talkers, barbers, to get young men to open up about how they're feeling.
--:-- Myra Anubi: I'm on a busy street in a town called Bungoma, but I'm here specifically today to visit a barbershop.
--:-- Myra Anubi: It's not just a place where people go to get haircuts, but men have a chance to talk about politics, football.
--:-- Myra Anubi: And at this barbershop called 64 Classic Kinyosi, they're doing things in a bit of a special way.
--:-- Myra Anubi: In this tiny shop, the barber, Davy Simu, is shaving his customers' hair, and the conversation is all about stress.
--:-- Davy Simu: Every customer who comes here who has maybe a particular problem concerning stress management, I always talk to them and we share one-on-one.
--:-- Myra Anubi: So I feel free to tell the lady specifically because I trust him.
--:-- Wanyony: He told me many things like be kind to myself.
--:-- Wanyony: Maybe if my thoughts and feelings are dragging me, I just unhook them.
--:-- Myra Anubi: Davis is one of 30 barbers in the region who been trained to support their customers mental health It part of a project to help young men which is run by a Kenyan NGO called Sentem
--:-- Arnold Satya: One of their researchers, Arnold Satya, believes it's helping to break down barriers.
--:-- Arnold Satya: Mental health is basically a taboo topic in our society here.
--:-- Arnold Satya: And so by using an informal setting where most of these youth can easily relate with a barber, we provide an opportunity for them to have a safe space to discuss and, you know, stimulate a conversation about these issues.
--:-- Myra Anubi: And they use a smart way to get the conversation started, specially commissioned music that talks about mental health.
--:-- Goldboy: I always ask my clients, are you OK with the music that is playing here or you feel like I should change?
--:-- Goldboy: He listens to the music and says, I'm OK.
--:-- Goldboy: In fact, this music has a very good message, especially is talking about stress.
--:-- Goldboy: You know, that's now how we start communicating.
--:-- Myra Anubi: Faris suffered from anxiety, and last year he was given some exercises to help manage it.
--:-- Faris: I got started reading it, taking in the actions, practicing the small, small exercises.
--:-- Faris: And overall, how much has this process helped you?
--:-- Faris: It served me a lot if I was to give it a scale from 1 to 10 at 39.
--:-- Arnold Satya: So far the project has reached out to more than a thousand young men with around 600 receiving the program materials.
--:-- Arnold Satya: Arnold hopes that it can have a long-lasting effect on the way mental health is dealt with.
--:-- Arnold Satya: It's our hope that there's a shift in perspective by ensuring that it's a common topic that is discussed in various settings it will become a common conversation and by doing that we hope that will create a culture.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Music has a wonderful power to transcend borders, interweave cultures and bring people together.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: That's the spirit behind a collaboration called Sirocco, named after the warm Mediterranean wind that crosses the Sahara connecting Africa with Europe.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: South African cellist and storyteller Abul Salaw Chuey has teamed up with Manchester Collective, a string ensemble based in Northern England, combining the two musical traditions in what they call a love letter to music and camaraderie.
--:-- Ella Bicknell: Ahead of their European revival tour, I've been speaking to Raki Singh, co-founder of the Manchester Collective and the lead violinist on the project.
--:-- Raki Singh: we've sort of found these threads where things are joined abstractly or directly and it's a really joyous exploration of different cultures and how they can reflect each other
--:-- Raki Singh: I saw a description on the website saying it's a love letter to music tell me about that process of how you make music together.
--:-- Raki Singh: A lot of this is your own creation.
--:-- Raki Singh: Yes, well, when you work with musicians from different cultures, not everybody has learned the language in the same way and they're speaking a different language even though it's all music.
--:-- Raki Singh: You know, everybody has different strengths and weaknesses and it's amazing to be in a room.
--:-- Raki Singh: It's a space where you can be vulnerable, which is really important when you're creating new art together, I think.
--:-- Raki Singh: The musicians I share the stage with in this are just incredible.
--:-- Raki Singh: we have abel salouch way who kind of needs no introduction he's taking the world by storm right now but also siddiqui dembele who is a djembe player from the ivory coast from a griot family and the strength of music in his culture is is really powerful
