大象传媒

Canon Gideon Byamugisha had just been ordained in the early 1990s when he tested positive for HIV. At the time in Uganda the stigma was immense, particularly for a priest. Many urged Gideon to keep his diagnosis a secret, but he refused. Instead, he turned his experience into a campaign, travelling globally to advocate for compassion toward people living with Aids. He went onto co-found the International Network of Religious Leaders Living With or Personally Affected by HIV and Aids.

Mina Smallman is a former Church of England archdeacon and teacher whose daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were murdered in London in 2020. In news that sent shockwaves across the UK, two police officers then took and distributed photographs and selfies with their bodies. Since then, Mina has campaigned to end violence against women and girls. She has written a memoir called A Better Tomorrow: Life Lessons in Hope and Strength.

Former boxing manager and promoter Kellie Maloney took boxing icon Lennox Lewis to heavyweight champion status in the UK. But at the height of her career Kellie was completely miserable and living a double life. At the time Kellie went by Frank, the brash promoter famous for going toe to toe with personalities like Don King, Mickey Duff and Barry Hearne. But behind closed doors, she was Kellie Maloney, who dreamed of being a woman and lived her life through stories of transgender people she'd find online and in magazines.

Dr. Irene Pepperberg is regarded today as the mother of avian cognition. But that accolade comes despite decades of being overlooked and ridiculed for daring to think that birds, with their walnut-sized brains, might have the ability to understand language. Alex, an African Grey Parrot, would help Irene to change people's minds about what a 'bird brain' can really do. And he would change her life too, before their 30 years of scientific study came to an untimely end.

Presenter: India Rakusen

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(Photo: Cassette tape. Credit: Getty Images)