大象传媒

Henry Ohanga is better known as Octopizzo, the rapper from the Kenyan slums who made it big. Octopizzo was brought up in Kibera, a neighbourhood in Nairobi often called Africa's largest slum. Today, he is an ambassador for the United Nations and has his own TV show and clothing line. He even told us about developing a range of condoms that glow in the dark to promote safe sex in areas with little access to electric lighting.

The American playwright and novelist Bonnie Greer was brought up in the 1950s on the South Side of Chicago. She spoke to us about her new memoir in which she remembers her childhood spent looking after her six younger siblings and living in the city described by Martin Luther King as the most segregated in America.

Outlook listener, Dr Hamse Ismail wrote to us to tell us how, as a wheelchair user in Somaliland, he needs to work "twice as hard as anybody else" to command respect. Growing up in post-war Somaliland inspired him to become a doctor, but when a car accident left him unable to walk his life was radically changed.

Four years ago, Joel Hodgeson, was one of London's many homeless. Now, he is waiting to find out if he has been picked to run at the Commonwealth Games this summer in Glasgow.

Photo courtesy of Octopizzo/Henry Ohanga.