Lives Less Ordinary

Salva Dut is one of Sudan's so-called 'Lost Boys.' Separated from his family at the age of 11 when the civil war reached his village in 1985, Salva walked for weeks to reach safety in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. There, he lived out most of his teenage years, amongst thousands of other orphans. Like most of them, Salva had no idea what had happened to his family. With little adult supervision, the boys developed their own systems of organisation. That was to prove vital when in 1991 they were driven from the camp by a new conflict. Salva was 17 by this point, and he'd become a leader amongst the boys. In total there were 17,000 of them. They set off in groups, first back towards Sudan, then south, towards Kenya. When they emerged from the wilderness after many months, aid workers were astonished to find them still alive. They shared their story with the world. The United Nations recommended almost 4,000 of the Lost Boys for resettlement in the US, and Salva's name was among them. By this point, in his early 20s, Salva had been separated from his family for a decade. A reunion seemed impossible. He would be boarding a flight and leaving the continent of his birth behind.The second part of Salva's story will be broadcast on the next edition of Lives Less OrdinaryPresenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Jo ImpeyGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

In the early 1980s Jason Evans' father was given a blood product called Factor 8 to treat his haemophilia, which infected him with HIV. He was one of thousands of people in the UK who were unwittingly infected with blood-borne viruses from blood products and infusions, despite the dangers being already known. Jason's father died when he was just four, and he spent most of his life campaigning for the truth about what happened.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Julian SiddleGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Nick Stride said too much about his former boss, one of Putin’s closest allies. Nick Stride, a builder from the UK, feared for his family’s safety after discovering alleged financial corruption while building First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov’s 140-million-dollar mansion in Moscow. Worried that his every movement was being watched, he hatched a plan to get out and put as much distance as possible between his loved ones and his former boss. They chose Australia. Nick then passed the secret accounting documents he’d taken to an investigative reporter, but by the time it came to publish, Nick and his family’s claim for political asylum in Australia was rejected. Seeing no way out, the family went on the run, hiding out amongst the snakes and crocodiles of the country’s unforgiving Dampier peninsula, every morning expecting a truck to pull up and tear his family apart.The book about his odyssey is called Run For Your Life, by Sue Williams.Get in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Edgar Maddicott

Anoosheh Ashoori was visiting Iran when he was snatched off the street by security forces. He was falsely accused of espionage, and spent years in one of the country's toughest prisons. For a long time, he didn't know why he'd been targeted. Anoosheh was a British-Iranian dual national, but he'd worked a career as an engineer, and had no links to intelligence services. Gradually, as his incarceration wore on, he realised he'd become a pawn in a game of global politics. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Andrea KennedyGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

When Sister Helen Prejean agreed to write to a convicted murderer on Louisiana’s death row in 1982, she had no idea what was coming. She would end up becoming his spiritual advisor, eventually accompanying him to his execution two years later. The experience changed her profoundly. She wrote a book about what she'd witnessed on death row, Dead Man Walking, which was turned into a major Hollywood movie in 1995. Forty years later, she has witnessed six more state executions - and is still tirelessly fighting to end them.Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Zoe GelberGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Salima Hashmi is a pioneer of political satire on Pakistani TV. But after the dictator General Zia took power in the 1977 military coup, she faced new and dangerous challenges when her show was banned. It was a troubling time for Salima’s family but from exile, her father Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote his most famous poem, Hum Dekhenge, a battle cry for liberation. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf Archive from the Faiz Foundation Get in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Salima Hashmi grew up in Lahore witnessing the radical poetry of her celebrated father, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. It inspired her own path into art and performance, creating Pakistani TV’s first ever political satire show, Such Gup. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam MarufGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Alain Gachet quit a lucrative career in oil to search for water underground. Colleagues told him he was a 'crazy donkey', but he eventually developed an algorithm that allowed him to 'peel the earth like an onion' and detect water beneath the surface. Soon, he was asked to train his talents to help pinpoint areas of life-saving reserves of water for desperate refugees escaping the conflict in Darfur. Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Anna Lacey and Hetal Bapodra Editor: Munazza KhanGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Beth Rodden escaped her kidnappers, and pushed her body to its limit, following the climber code of whatever hurts makes you stronger. She married her boyfriend Tommy Caldwell, who had saved them by pushing their captor off a cliff in the Kyrgyz mountains. They became the first couple to free climb the Nose in Yosemite National Park. To the world she was a record-breaking athlete, but inside she was crumbling, haunted by that moment in the mountains. It would take her 15 years to face it head on, and in doing so she redefined what it meant to be a climber.Beth's book A Light Through the Cracks: A Climber's Story is out now.Clips are from NPR and the Associated Press.Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Louise MorrisGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Beth Rodden was on a dream climbing expedition in Kyrgyzstan when she was kidnapped by Islamist militants. She and her friends spent days moving between hiding places in the mountains, fearing for their lives as food supplies dwindled. Then, six days in, the group found themselves at the edge of a cliff with a single young guard. They had a chance to escape, but it came with a huge ethical dilemma. Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Louise MorrisGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784Audio for this episode was updated on 6 June 2024.

Setsuko Thurlow knows what nuclear war looks like.She was a 13-year-old schoolgirl when an atomic bomb was dropped on her home city of Hiroshima, Japan. Most of the places she knew were destroyed in an instant. Narrowly escaping death herself, Setsuko became a witness to the aftermath of atomic warfare, and the things she saw that day would compel her to spend her life fighting for nuclear disarmament. Archive was from British PathéPresenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Jo Impey and Harry Graham Editor: Laura ThomasGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

In 2016, when Jenny Söderqvist and Helene Åberg’s car exploded in the middle of the vast Kalahari desert, their supplies and only lifeline to the outside world went up in flames. No rescue would come. The two friends from Sweden would spend the next five harrowing days lost in the wilderness and stalked by lions, until their salvation appeared to them in the most unlikely of forms: a tin of Spam.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Edgar MaddicottGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Mistaken for a terrorist, and detained without trial. Art became his refuge.Pakistani taxi driver Ahmed Rabbani was arrested in 2002, labelled a terrorist and spent 21 years in US detention, including time in a CIA secret prison. Incarcerated without trial or charge, Ahmed was subject to enhanced interrogation, or what he describes as 62 different types of torture. When he was transferred to a cell in Guantanamo Bay, Ahmed would pick up paint and pastels and find solace through art – creating vistas he could only imagine.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf Voiceover: Mohammed HanifGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

On the day his mother disappeared in December 1989, 11-year-old Collier Landry started looking for evidence. He suspected his father, a rich and well-respected town doctor, had something to do with it. This is the story of Collier's fight to get justice for his mother, and the detective who believed him.Collier's film is called A Murder in Mansfield. Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Helen FitzhenryGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

How Ustad Noor Bakhsh, a Pakistani shepherd in his 70s, became a folk music starAfter hunting for four years, Pakistani ethnomusicologist Daniyal Ahmed finally finds Ustad Noor Bakhsh, an elderly shepherd and master of the electric benjo – an obscure stringed instrument with typewriter keys. With Daniyal’s help, Ustad Noor would go from serenading his goats in the jungles of Balochistan to performing for revellers on the European festival circuit.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam Maruf Translation: Wajid BalochGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

The epic quest to find an elderly Pakistani musician and his unusual stringed instrumentDaniyal Ahmed is a flute player and anthropologist who spends his time searching out and documenting folk music across Pakistan. In 2018, he was mesmerised by a video clip of an elderly man – described as a “poor fisherman” – expertly playing a benjo, an obscure stringed instrument that looks like a cross between a guitar and a typewriter. So began Daniyal’s hunt for this mystery master musician.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Maryam MarufGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Erika Cheung went from a trailer park to a top tech company job, but something was off.She knew how to work hard, growing up in a one-bedroom trailer, she dreamed of pursuing her passion for science and helping others. So Erika was thrilled to land her first job out of university at a booming tech company promising a revolution in healthcare. Fronted by the glamorous and wealthy Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos claimed to have the technology to be able to tell from a few drops of blood whether someone had a range of diseases. That was not true. And it took Erika, one of their most junior employees, to blow the whistle – at great personal risk. Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Mary Goodhart Editor: Munazza KhanGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Maria's grandmother was forcibly taken by Australian officials, but made a daring escape.As children Maria Pilkington's mother and grandmother were both among the Stolen Generation, removed from their homes to be trained as domestic servants for white families. It was part of an Australian policy dating back to the 1930s to remove mixed-race children from any Aboriginal influence. But Maria's 14-year-old grandmother escaped, with her sister and cousin, by following a pest-control barrier that went right through Western Australia back to their home. The girls' extraordinary three-month, 1400km walk home became the Hollywood film Rabbit-Proof Fence, based on a book written by Maria's mother. Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Sarah Kendal Get in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp 0044 330 678 2784

Leyner Palacios grew up around volatile armed groups, so he learned to negotiate with them.He comes from a remote forested area called Bojaya, where clusters of small villages are spread along isolated waterways. Leyner's community had to share the rivers and forests with outsiders, armed groups like the Farc and the paramilitaries, who were locked into a decades-old conflict. As a child, Leyner learned to constantly navigate checkpoints manned by volatile armed people, and he showed a talent for negotation and mediation. As the conflict heated up, and with his community under siege, these skills would become more useful than ever. Music from the 'Cantadoras de Pogue' was recorded by the Centro de Estudios Afrodiaspóricos - https://www.icesi.edu.co/vocesderesistencia/e/vol-1-cantadoras-de-pogue.phpPresenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Harry Graham Translation: Jorge Caraballo Sound design: Joe Munday Editor: Munazza Khan

The Austrian house where a doctor experimented on children.Evy Mages grew up in and out of foster care in 1970s and 80s Austria. But even when she started a new life in the US, she was haunted by traumatic memories of a strange yellow house high up in the Alps, where she had been placed as an eight-year-old. It took an idle internet search in her 50s to reveal that this was actually an institution called a 'Kinderbeobachtungsstation', or 'child-observation station', where vulnerable children were experimented on by a psychologist using shocking methods. She decided to step back into her past to uncover the full, disturbing truth of what happened there.Evy’s story first appeared in a New Yorker article in September 2023.Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Rebecca Vincent

A handwritten map is all Mamadou Barry had to guide him from Guinea to Egypt.At the age of 24 he had reached a crossroads in his life. Having failed his final year secondary school exams five times in a row, he set his sights on a different type of education. Mamadou had heard about the prestigious Al Azhar University in Egypt, but could not afford a plane ticket. So he decided to set off on an epic adventure, travelling by bike, and leaving his home in Guinea with only $55, a small bag of clothes and tools, and a map he had drawn himself.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Rob Wilson Translator and interpreter: Olivier Weber Voiceover artist: Gaïus KoweneArchive was from the official YouTube channel for Will Smith

A life shaped by addiction.Australian Holly Deane-Johns had a complicated childhood. Her parents ran an escort agency from their home, and heroin addiction later took over the whole family. She was first given heroin by her mother, aged just 15. Holly ended up dealing to feed her habit, and in her early 30s was sentenced to 31 years in a notorious Thai prison, convicted of drug smuggling. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Mary Goodhart Editor: Rebecca VincentGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784

Ruth Shaw spent years on ships and islands, trying to outrun her past.She left her home in New Zealand as a young woman, driven away by a traumatic attack that would shape her life for years to come. Ruth tried to find escape on sailing ships, in Tahitian gambling dens and in the bars and kitchens of Papua New Guinea. But ultimately she had to head home, to face up to deep adolescent scars, and to find the child she’d been forced to give up years before.Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: May Cameron Editor: Munazza KhanPhoto: ‘The Bookseller at the End of the World’

The extraordinary coach who started a football team but built something much bigger.One day when Luma Mufleh was driving home to Atlanta, Georgia, she came across a group of barefoot boys playing football in the street, using a raggedy old ball and rocks for goalposts. They reminded her of how she played at home in Jordan and she asked to join their game. The Fugees Family football team was born. Luma Mufleh has written a book about her extraordinary story, Believe in Them: One Woman's Fight for Justice for Refugee Children.Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Helen FitzhenryGet in touch: [email protected] or Whatsapp: 0044 330 678 2784

Without realising it, Nick Reynolds had been living his childhood on the run.Early one morning in 1968 he answered his front door, completely oblivious to the whirlwind about to be unleashed on his family. Most of Nick's early years had been spent carefree and happy on the shores of Mexico with his British parents. But all the while he had been growing up in the shadow of one of the most notorious crimes of the 20th century. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Eric Mugaju and Anna LaceyGet in touch: [email protected] or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784(Photo: Nick & Bruce Reynolds. Credit: Ronnie Biggs)

After crashing high in the Andes, Nando Parrado had to go to the extreme to get out.In 1972, when the plane carrying 22 year old Uruguayan Nando Parrado and his rugby team came down deep in the Andes mountain range in South America, they were left for dead. Rescue teams called off their search after 10 days. Nando and the other survivors would spend an incredible 72 days trapped, frozen and forsaken in this icy wilderness. And in order to come out alive, they would have to do the unthinkable. Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Laura Thomas

Lucy Sexton was making a TV series about hostages when her father Joe was abductedLucy and her father Joe Sexton are American journalists. In 2021 Lucy was working on the TV series ‘Hostages’ when her personal and professional life collided. Joe had been abducted while on a reporting trip in Libya. What followed was a surreal week of parallels as they both tried to make sense of what was happening – Joe from a cell in Libya and Lucy from a production set in Washington. Later, they turned their experience into a joint writing project that brought them closer than ever before.Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: May Cameron Editor: Harry Graham Sound design: Joel Cox

A chance email led Hannah Ha to uncover her mother Tam’s forgotten musical legacy.Hannah knew her mother could sing. When she took the stage at karaoke, she always stole the show. But when a chance email revealed she had once been a recording artist called Phuong Tam in 1960s Saigon, she was stunned. Hannah embarked on a two-year hunt to track down her mother’s long-lost recordings – and her rock 'n' roll legacy.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Zoe Gelber

Jair Candor tracks down remote Amazonian tribes in order to protect them from outsiders.One tribe, the Piripkura has just one member left who’s living nomadically, deep in the rainforest. It’s Jair’s mission to find him, to establish he’s alive, and to protect his land rights from those who want the forest for themselves. Jair has monitored numerous indigenous groups in Brazil over the years, and he’s faced frequent malaria, armed logging groups, and the occasional arrow fired in his direction.Presenter: Andrea Kennedy Producer: Harry Graham and Graciela Damiano Editor: Munazza Khan Voice actor: Thomas Pappon Sound design: Joe Munday

Tasoula Hadjitofi tricked a notorious art smuggler to recover Cyprus' holiest relicsWhen war split Tasoula's home country of Cyprus in two in 1974 she had to leave home, never to return. Years later, while living in the Netherlands she was approached by a shady art dealer with news that shook her to the core: artefacts sacred to her Greek Orthodox faith had been stolen, hammered out from church walls and were now being sold on the black market. Tasoula then poured everything into righting this wrong and vowed to bring them back. She would have to plumb the depths of the criminal underworld and hatch an elaborate sting operation to catch the mastermind behind it all.Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Edgar Maddicott Sound Design: Joe Munday Editor: Harry Graham

Tasoula Hadjitofi uncovered a shady network looting her country's most sacred relicsIn 1974 Tasoula's country, Cyprus, was torn in two by war. Distraught and unable to return home she ended up in the Netherlands where some years later a shadowy art dealer approached her with some astonishing news. Religious artefacts sacred to her faith that had adorned the churches she prayed in as a girl had been chiselled away, and were now being sold on the black market. And so began Tasoula's decade-long search for the stolen relics. But she would first have to learn from the criminals in order to catch them.Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Edgar Maddicott Sound Design: Joe Munday Editor: Harry Graham

Pepe and Lucía: the bonfire of young love, a long separation, and rise to presidency.The guerrilla lovers finally meet and fall for each other, but their joy is shortlived, they’re soon arrested again – and this time there won’t be any escape. Uruguay’s military coup means that the couple are separated by 13 years of brutal detention. When they’re granted amnesty, they find their way back to each other, and enter the political fray, all the way up to the presidency.Presenter: Andrea Kennedy Producer: Louise Morris Dubbing by Fede di Lorenzo and Elizabeth RhodesClips courtesy of Euro News, RDTV, France 24 and SBS.

Pepe and Lucía: the guerrilla lovers who became the leaders of UruguayWhen they were younger, José Pepe Mujica and Lucía Topolansky separately joined a left-wing insurgency set on overthrowing the country's government. They wouldn't meet for years but they were on the same mission. Each went underground, cutting ties to friends and family while their group, the Tupamaros, carried out bank heists to fund the uprising. The law soon caught up with them both, but neither were prepared to stay behind bars for long. Presenter: Andrea Kennedy Producer: Louise MorrisDubbers were Elizabeth Rhodes and Fede di Lorenzo

When award-winning author Alex Wheatle was sentenced to nine months in prison at the age of 18, he thought his life was over. Alex had been born in London to Jamaican parents, but grew up in care in the notorious Shirley Oaks children’s home. As a teenager, he was convicted of assaulting a police officer during the Brixton Riots. He felt totally alone and without hope. But as the door slammed on Alex’s prison cell, he met a book-loving man called Simeon who opened his eyes to the importance of his own history – and encouraged him to use his past to write a new and hopeful future. Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Hetal Bapodra and Anna Lacey

Eric Ngalle is now a poet and academic in the Welsh capital of Cardiff, but it's his experiences as a people-trafficked teenager that inspire much of his work. When he was 17, he found himself broke and alone in Moscow, freezing cold and unable to speak a word of Russian. To survive, he relied on charity, girlfriends, and a brief stripping career. None of this was enough to buy him a ticket home to Cameroon, so he got involved in a high-risk scam, which targeted some very dangerous people. If you’ve been affected by anything you heard in this interview, support is available through the BBC Action Line website or via Befrienders Worldwide.Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Harry GrahamGet in touch: WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

Sport but not as you know it. A brand new sports storytelling podcast.Imagine being stranded in the “death zone” on one of the world’s highest mountains. How about running 200 miles in a dark tunnel? We’ve been searching the world for the most amazing sport stories. Other podcasts bring you the scores and team news. This one tells the stories you’ll wish you’d known about and now probably won’t forget. You don’t need to be obsessed with sport to find yourself immersed in our mini-seasons and short stories. Search for Amazing Sport Stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Or find it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvs1/episodes/downloads

Reality TV producer Johnathan Walton found himself in a plot he couldn't have dreamt up. It all started when a woman helped him when he was locked out of his building's swimming pool. She was magnetic and full of fun and soon they became inseparable. But things weren't quite as rosy as they seemed. Four years into their friendship Johnathan started pulling at the edges of her story, it all began to unravel and he'd have to start playing detective in a bid to bring her down.Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Munazza Khan

Gamal Turawa has lived many lives - but never fitted in.First as a black British boy adopted into a white family, then hoodwinked by his father and eventually begging on the streets of Lagos - he was always on the margins. As an adult he joined London's Metropolitan Police, but instead of finding a home there, his differences were used to tear him down and humilate him. When Gamal finally hit rock bottom he decided to stop hiding and stand out. Details of organisations offering information and support on a wide range of issues are available at www.bbc.co.uk/actionline Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Charlie Towler and Harry Graham Editor: Laura Thomas

Gamal Turawa has lived many lives - but never fitted inAs the first openly gay black officer in London's Metropolitan Police, he struggled to find his way while reckoning with his past. Adopted into a white family as a baby, Gamal was hoodwinked by his father as a boy and ended up living as a teenage beggar on the streets of Lagos, until a chance encounter saw him find work as a magician's assistant, hyping up crowds across West Africa. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Charlie Towler and Harry Graham Editor: Laura Thomas

Joar Hesten's mission to save a whale rumoured to have escaped from the Russian navy.Norwegian Joar Hesten was fishing for cod in the Arctic when he came across a beluga whale wearing a harness. He helped to free the animal, but when he took a closer look at the harness he saw that it was labelled ‘Equipment of St Petersburg’. Theories started swirling that this whale had once belonged to the Russian military, and it was nicknamed Hvaldimir, the 'Russian spy whale'. As Hvaldimir's fame grew, Joar became determined to protect him from human contact. Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Saskia EdwardsPhoto: Joar with Hvaldimir Credit: Aleksander Nordahl, DN/D2

Tiago Rech went viral when he was the only supporter in the stands at his club's game.In 2012 Tiago Rech was the only fan at a big away match for his beloved football team Santa Cruz FC. When they scored, his timid, lone celebration was caught by TV cameras and went viral. All this attention earned him a role with the club, where full of ideas and enthusiasm, he made his way to the very top, to his dream job of club President. But there would be a sting in this fairytale. Produced and presented by Andrea Kennedy Editor: Munazza KhanClips courtesy of Federação Gaúcha de Futebol and Canal Duda Garbi.

Fleur Pierets and Julian Boom wanted to wed in every country that allowed gay marriage.After falling in love at first sight, the artist couple planned to make a statement to the world. So in 2017, they embarked on ‘Project 22’ - a performance art piece in which they would marry in all 22 countries where same-sex marriage was legal at the time. But four weddings later, their trip would be tragically cut short. Fleur has written a memoir about her experience, called Julian. Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producers: Olivia Lynch-Kelly and Zoe Gelber Editor: Munazza Khan

The Robertsons' boat was attacked by killer whales and started to sink fast Douglas was 16 years old when his parents sold the family farm in England and took him and his three siblings on a sailing trip around the world. It was the adventure of a lifetime. But in 1972 while en route to New Zealand, their yacht was hit by a pod of orcas and they started to sink fast. Weeks from safety and with no way to send for help, Douglas and his family would have to try and find a way to survive.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: May Cameron Editor: Andrea Kennedy Sound design: Joel Cox

Tahir Izgil is one of the most highly respected living Uyghur poets. Tahir was born near Kashgar, in Xinjiang province, and from an early age he was immersed in the poetry of his culture. When the Chinese state clamped down on the Uyghur community, he lived under constant threat of arrest, and says he couldn’t even perform his poems. So he decided to try and escape his homeland. Tahir has a memoir out about his experiences called Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, translated by Joshua Freeman.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Andrea Kennedy

Juliana Lumumba had to fight to reclaim the remains of her father, Patrice Lumumba.He'd been the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo and an anti-colonial hero. He was assassinated in 1961 when Juliana was five years old, and no trace of his body was found. So when it emerged 60 years later that one of his gold teeth was in Belgium, Juliana yearned to bring it home. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Rob Wilson Editor: Munazza Khan

Under the boot of the Syrian army, Nicole Moudaber brought raves to Lebanon. After sampling the delights of dance music whilst studying abroad in the nineties, Nicole made it her goal to bring this new sound to a divided and conservative society. She faced opposition from her family and the regime, but when scandal hit she decided to turn the tables...herself. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott and Harry Graham Editor: Munazza Khan(Photo: Nicole Moudaber. Credit: Stuart Tracte)

A mother, a son, and the discovery of a shared dream. Latifa Khamessi and her son Mohamed Toukabri from Tunisia were inseparable until aged 15 when he left for Europe to study dance. It was gut-wrenching to be apart, but an opportunity he couldn't turn down. It wasn't until years later that Mohamed discovered his mother had had the same dream as a girl, but had been forbidden from pursuing it. Separated by a sea and oceans of time Mohamed then hatched a plan to reunite with his mother, now in her sixties, and unite their dreams. The Power (of) the Fragile was performed at The Shubbak Festival in London.Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Helen Fitzhenry Editor: Rebecca Vincent Voice over by Mounira Chaieb

From the page to the stage: William turns childhood fantasies into reality. In London, William Lee Adams is feeling disillusioned with his job, when a Romanian singer on a horse appears on his computer screen and he's inspired to start writing about the Eurovision Song Contest. Wiwibloggs is born, and grows to be the world's most-followed independent blog and video channel about Eurovision. In the process, he gets to visit some of the far-flung places he escaped to as a child in the US reading encyclopaedias. William has written a memoir called Wild Dances: My Queer and Curious Journey to Eurovision.Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Rob Wilson

A bond between brothers, a coming-out story, and an international song contest. William Lee Adams is one of the leading voices covering the Eurovision Song Contest, criss-crossing the continent to interview stars and live-stream shows. But as a child growing up in small-town America, he was made to feel invisible; encouraged to suppress his Vietnamese heritage and questions about his sexuality. He found solace in caring for his brother, John, who had severe physical disabilities due to a brain condition. Even so, he needed an escape route. William has written a memoir called Wild Dances: My Queer and Curious Journey to Eurovision. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Rob Wilson

Harrison Okene spent three days trapped in an air pocket in a sunken ship.Harrison was the ship's cook, and he'd been in the bathroom when the tugboat he worked on had suddenly capsized in bad weather. The vessel sank 30 metres to the seabed, upside down, and Harrison was trapped inside. Days passed, and up on the surface a mission was launched to recover the bodies of the tugboat's crew. Divers descended, but they never expected to find anyone alive. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Eric Mugaju and Harry Graham Editor: Munazza Khan Sound design: Joel CoxArchive was courtesy of DNC Diving