Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: The young people changing the world

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

At the One Young World summit in Canada, we meet leaders and innovators from around the world including a 22-year-old MP, a woman using AI to tackle cyberbullying, and the founder of a fashion brand praised by Beyoncé.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. Life and death were two very realistic co-existing possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference.

It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit camh.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free.

Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. You're listening to The Happy Pod from One Young World. Hello, I'm Holly Gibbs, and for this week's Happy Pod from the BBC World Service, we are in Montreal for the One Young World Summit. Bonjour tout le monde, bienvenue à Montréal, and welcome to One Young World! We've met young leaders and innovators from more than 190 countries who have gathered to confront the biggest challenges facing humanity.

Despite the difficult themes discussed here in Canada, the people we've met have shown so much optimism, hope and solutions for the future and we're going to share their inspiring stories with you. When you see the way that we challenge things in Parliament, they're just really different and it's definitely what I'm aligned to. They're also using the knowledge they gain here to make a real difference back home. I already know that there was sustainable and biodegradable products around the globe, but I never had the chance to see these products in Brazil.

There are so many young people from around the world that really care. I'm not alone in what I'm doing, and there's other young changemakers who are on the same path, and we all are going to change this world, and it's one step at a time. First up in Montreal is Hannah Rafiti Maipi-Clark. She became New Zealand's youngest MP for more than 170 years when she was elected into Parliament last year. And it wasn't just her age that caught attention.

So did this. During her inauguration, Hannah performed a ceremonial haka, a traditional ritual of the Maori people. Her work has gathered global recognition, and now she's been named as one of the politicians of the year at the One Young World Summit here in Canada. So what's it like being a 22-year-old MP? Our reporter Jacob Evans caught up with Hannah and began by asking her how she felt after winning the award. Very humbled for us is a saying, which means the sweet potato will never say how sweet it is.

So I'm accepting this award not for myself but for the people around me who've raised me. So how did you get into politics? Okay so never been into politics but I am into standing up for people. My grandparents have been heavily involved in kind of always challenging the status quo through activism so I've always kind of just been surrounded in that environment, which, yeah, I guess inspired me to the party that I'm a part of is Te Pāti Māori, which is an all-Indigenous party. When you see the way that we challenge things in Parliament, they're just really different,

and it's definitely what I'm aligned to. And talking of challenging things in Parliament, you went viral for doing the haka in Parliament. Talk to me about that and how important it was for you to do that. So haka is a form of expression. It's more than a performance, it's more so a I guess physical embodiment of expressing our culture. We do that through singing, chants, instruments. But this haka was not for anyone else. It was purely just to calm my nerves down, and that's what I'm used to doing.

So being 22 and being in Parliament, you're the youngest elected MP in 170 years. What's that like? Do you think people treat you differently for being so young? I think there's many factors, like being young, being female, and also being Māori is super, super challenging. Not just for myself, but for us as a people. And then at the same time,

I'm 22, so my outlook on it is that I want our people to see us living and thriving. And so we talked to you about as you as a politician, but what about you as a person? What do your friends make of this journey you're on? So I've got two of my best friends actually here on the trip with me, and I've got a kapaka group that is with me as well,

and that just goes to the saying that I didn't want to come here alone, and I'm never put in positions where I'm alone I travel as much as I can with three generations so my parents and my grandparents and anyone from those generations and it's important that I travel with three generations even though it's a little bit costly because there's also something that we call um tikanga which is customs, that keep us safe. And I guess that is why I'm able to do the work that I can do, because my foundation is so strong and I'm protected. And are you just like every other normal 22-year-old?

Definitely. Are you chronically online? Yeah, I'm a sucker for TikTok. I'll just scroll constantly, like this morning, for two hours I should have been doing work. But I guess I don't see them as guilty pleasures, but actually now I've reframed that to self-care. So it's okay to go on my phone, to watch movies, to watch Netflix.

And lastly, what's your ambition? What do you want to do in the future? What do I want to do in the future? I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow. Jacob Evans speaking with Hannah Rafiti May P. Clark. Now to technology that aims to stop cyberbullying before the damage is done. Trisha Prabhu, who's 24 years old, has been recognised at this summit for her company Rethink, and it all started when she took a free coding class at her local library.

I met with Tricia and started by asking her why she wanted to create the technology. Unfortunately, at first I had my own experience with online harassment, like so many members of Gen Z today. Sadly, it's become right of passage in some ways for our generation. I, for a very long time, I think like a lot of victims, thought there was something wrong with me, that I was the problem. And my wake-up call was realizing much later, a couple of years later, that in fact cyberbullying was a silent pandemic because I started to read and see news stories of other young people who had been cyberbullied, sometimes in extreme ways with really damaging consequences. I was just horrified. And I could not believe that, you know, it was in the news cycle and then it would disappear. And it was almost like we were

accepting that that was just the world we had to live in. I felt like I could not be a bystander to that. And I decided, OK, I have to do something. And a bit about you. You have been nominated as the Entrepreneur of the Year at the One Young World Summit. How does that feel? It feels very surreal. I remember getting the email thinking, oh, my goodness, me?

I was so floored and just so grateful. I think it's a testament to the power of young people's voices to do things. Value in our world is not just monetary. And I think that that's something that business needs to wake up to more and more. And I think social entrepreneurship is a really beautiful example of how you can build an organization that has tremendous impact that you're incredibly proud of and create value in a lot of different ways. But you can also create a world that's consistent with the values that you want to live. And we do that by building technology that helps youth to pause and rethink before they say something that could be offensive.

Our vision is really to get young people to embrace the intentionality and criticality that they may apply in in-person settings, but they may not do online. And in doing so, really create this revolution around the digital world where we are centering positivity and kindness in our interactions instead of a lot of the toxicity and hate that characterizes a lot of our digital experience today. And have you had any user feedback from people that use Rethink? Yes, and that's probably one of the most special parts of my job is hearing from young people who have benefited from the technology in some way. A lot of the discourse we have around cyber bullies today, the message is very much these

kids are awful. And if you think about it, the fundamental assumption that Rethink is rooted on is no, it's not that we're all awful people or Gen Z is just so terrible. It's that we've been put in this environment that is so frictionless and, you know, can feel so ephemeral that you'll say and do things that you would never do in person. And so what we need to do is to be able to reclaim our humanity online. Some of the funniest feedback I receive is from adults, actually, who will tell me, I need this for my work email. How do you balance being 24 and an entrepreneur and achieving everything that you have? It's a lot. There are definitely days where you know I wish had gotten a little bit more sleep or days where it can feel a little surreal the shifts like I

remember in high school because I started this work when I was 13 you know sometimes I would go from like a math test to receiving an award on an international stage and it was like the stark contrast between those things could be kind of funny. But I mean, for me, balancing it all, I think, is having a supportive community around me. Those are professional mentors, but it's also family and friends, people who know me for me and celebrate me for me and all of the contexts that I appear in, whether it's me just being a 24-year-old and going out with some friends and getting dinner, or it's me as founder and CEO doing this work. So I think that is really, really helpful. Did you always want to be an entrepreneur?

I did not, no. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a princess, and then I wanted to be an astronaut, and then I wanted to be an author for the longest time. There's still time to become a princess. This is the happy pod. What makes you happy? I think seeing young people do things that make our world better makes me really, really happy because it gives me a lot of hope for the future of our world.

That was Trisha Prabhu. Around the world, millions of women and girls still cannot afford menstrual products or even have access to them. It's called period poverty and one young activist is hoping to eradicate it in her native Brazil. There, one in four do not have access to sanitary products. Patricia Zanella created her country's first 100% biodegradable sanitary pad and uses local communities to distribute them to every corner of Brazil. Siobhan Leahy saw her at the summit. We saw menstrual poverty in our daily routine.

So I already supported women to buy pets. And when I started this program, I was thinking, how this woman that don't have access to pets, when she didn't find someone like me that will support her what this woman will do on the next month and I already know that there was sustainable and biodegradable products around the club but I never had the chance to see these products in Brazil. So you employ women to make the sanitary pads is that right? Yes. So that's a kind of a whole new way of engaging women like you say into work but you've got the sanitary pad in front of us do you want to show us what makes it different because I'm looking at it doesn't look any different to an

ordinary sanitary pad. Yeah the difference is that he didn't take 500 years to decompose just six months we were able to do this using raw materials from brazil so it's from bamboo cellulose natural glue so all the process is really natural and all the fibers are hypoallergenic. So let me have a little feel. Oh it's very nice and soft. Yeah it's soft. So how do you get these out to people who need them the most? How are they reaching the people who experience menstrual poverty? So this is the most incredible part of work. We are able to work with different stakeholders to provide, first of all, the funding for the production. So the women that are producing also have access to the pads. When we did the production, we already know where this production will go.

So for example, our last production, it was 100% to donation for NGOs in Salvador, Bahia. And this is incredible because we had the chance to have sponsors that provide us the funding for do this production. And after this, we were able to keep this production. We are rethinking the way that pets are done and distributed to the needs of the communities that we are working for. Patricia Zanella speaking with Siobhan Leahy. You're listening to a special edition of The Happy Pod recorded at the One Young World Summit in Montreal, Canada. Coming up...

Prince William said he loved what we do and he actually went on to call me the Queen of Africa, which was really insane. The teenage mum turned CEO who caught the eye of royalty. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions.

Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News,

AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Some say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that's the case for Cesar D'Souli, a Spanish-Iranian photojournalist who is one of the winners of the One Young World Journalist

of the Year Award. His work focuses on migration, human rights and international affairs. I asked Cesar what it feels like to be a winner. It's a pleasure to be part of a community that is recognising young leaders around the world. I feel honoured and it's a responsibility as well because there are important names that were awarded before people who are doing amazing and it feels big to be among them it's been like 12 years i'm working as a photojournalist i think and i believe that photography is a language that we use in daily basis i believe this specific language to tell things is so important these days that we need people who are experts on communicating through photography.

So what I do is to make sure that the stories I tell through photography are meaningful, are journalistic, and to make sure that I send messages in the right way through photography. And talk to us a bit about the power of photography. You can send very different messages through one same picture so when you are making a photograph you can probably direct the way people will interact with every reality that you are photographing so you can photograph a reality from a perspective that is going to create hope and interest and happiness depends on what you want to create or you can create drama you can create or repeat the stereotypes that have already been built on those realities.

I have been trying to run away from the usual representation of migrants, usually this construction of the migrant identity as a mass, as people that we cannot connect with, we cannot identify. And what I do is to photograph individuals that I always name, I always know who they are, and I tell their stories from a closer perspective, but in context where we can identify with them. So we can see regular people having regular lives in regular spaces to tell this story from a positive perspective, from a better perspective,

from a more human and empathetic perspective that helps audiences to connect. It makes my work make sense. How does it feel to be making waves as a young person? And what would you say to other young people who want to get into a field that is mostly dominated by people not their age? So my advice is to believe in what you do,

to make sure you don't judge too much the ones who are there but try to understand what they do and why they are there and try to bring something with you try to find what you can add to those structures that are already existing and how you can improve them and make sure that you are respectful with the realities that you are reporting on. How are you going to celebrate your award? I don't know. I didn't plan. I think we're going to probably party tonight and celebrate. Hopefully, I don't know.

And then with friends when I'm back home. But I didn't plan a celebration. Another business leader who's been honoured here in Montreal is Charlotte Magai, the founder of Makuru Clean Stoves Charlotte grew up in one of the biggest slums in Nairobi By the age of 10 she was an orphan and at 16 she became a mother leading her to drop out of school and find a job selling charcoal

Then, when her daughter suffered severe burns from a traditional stove, Charlotte was inspired to create her own business, producing child and environmentally friendly stoves that can now be found in two million homes across Kenya. She also won the 2022 Earthshot Prize. She's been speaking to the Happy Pod's Siobhan Leahy. Initially, I just wanted to build a more stable stove to limit the risk of burns in children under the age of five and while doing more research on that was when I realised that you know household air pollution and high cost of fuel were also a factor and I needed to solve all three so then I went on ahead and designed a stove that would then go and solve

three problems. When did you know that you had become successful? When did that moment happen? I think I've had different moments where I've felt, again, because you're an entrepreneur, so you never really feel successful. And then there are days when you feel like a loser. There are days that you feel like, you know, invisible. And the more recent moment was,

I think when I was in London for Climate Week and Prince William said he loved what we do. And he actually went on to call me the Queen of Africa, which was really insane. But I thought he wouldn't do that if he didn't think what we do is inspirational and impactful. And that is such a moment of pride for me me because when then things don't go right or when I'm struggling I replay that moment in my head yeah so obviously you said you feel very grateful to win these awards but how do you stay happy how do you stay positive what makes you really yeah really happy I think what makes me happy is seeing the life that I have managed to build for myself. My life was going to take a very different turn. Like this was not what I was

going to live up to be. I wasn't going to have the family that I have. I wasn't going to have, the work that I have. So I got really lucky and is knowing that I was one choice away from living a very different life. And everyday things that make you happy, that get you motivated, because you know what? Everyone has those mornings where they get up and they go, I want to go to work. But you've got a big company, you have a very busy schedule. How do you keep yourself motivated and keep yourself happy? Yeah. Oh man, I love food. you have a very busy schedule how do you keep yourself motivated and keep yourself happy yeah oh man i love food so every day if i wake up and i'm having a difficult day and i smell pancakes

or like i know there's some sweet corn in my fridge that i can boil and eat it brings me so much joy and books books are my my favorite pickup um just because books also did save my life. But those are some of the things that every day when it gets rough, I'm very easy to make happy. Just give me pancakes or like sweet corn. I want to talk about that books saved your life. What do you mean by that? I mean, the place that I grew up was, as you know, quite dangerous, you know, and just not, it wasn't a pretty life. A lot of the people I grew up with, the way life turned out for them was very different. But my love for books saved me because of the fact that I could, I was able to speak differently. I had great vocabulary. And so the first chance that books ever gave me was

getting pen pals because I could write composition really well. And so I got pen pals from the UK, from the US, and I would just write to a bunch of kids my age. And that helped give me opportunities to see the outside world, the world outside of Mukuru. When I say books have my life, I mean, I would have a completely different life if I couldn't communicate. When I say books saved my life, I mean I would have a completely different life if I couldn't communicate. And I was able to communicate because of the fact that I loved reading. Charlotte Magaye. From the north of Nigeria to the front cover of Forbes magazine. With no business training or fashion experience, Fatima Babakura created a luxury accessories brand. And now she's giving back to

the community that raised her. Siobhan caught up with her at the One Young World Summit. So growing up in Nigeria, I'm a northern girl and a northern girl means that, you know, we're very conservative. We go to school, we come back and usually like after university, you aspire to marriage. Even if you do end up getting a career it's like you do it but you don't put it in our faces you know very quiet that's what the culture is and so you know having to like just explain to people why I do things and do it like on a global stage you know be out there be on like news interviews like just showing myself a lot of people didn't understand mostly you know the male figures in like our society is you know something that was challenging but it's you know

I've done it and it's inspired a lot of people to now want to like start businesses while maintaining those values and like cultural like norms since building my businesses i've realized what really keeps me like in it and also happy is just the why the reason why i do it so with my perfumes business for example beyond you know like making money you know as with any business it's also to empower the women who come from where i'm where i come from you know it's a community that has been affected by boko haram it's a community of women who are not like entrepreneurs, but support their family the little way that they could. And so, you know, we work with women like that to be able to make our incense.

And what we've done is, you know, take some of our profits, actually 50% of our profit, and send it to them. And so it's really the reason why I do things, is to just make sure that beyond making money and making impact in like people's lives especially the lives of women. Okay so now on to the very glamorous part tell me about your collection and what you design. So I love to think about my shoe and bag business as you know every day is a party you should be able to wear something that makes you feel like you're celebrating yourself even if you weren't going to an event you know every day is a party you should be able to wear something that makes you feel like you're celebrating yourself even if you weren't going to an event you know something that makes you feel

you're most confident you're most happy in our shoes and our bags i hear that a certain beyonce has worn one of your bags i mean what yeah so in 2020 when beyon Beyonce did the compilation of like black businesses in the world, we were lucky to be featured in, you know, in that list. And it was really beautiful. And I felt very honored. And, you know, it changed a lot of things for our business. Oh, my gosh. What was that moment like when you realized Beyonce had singled out your business? Honestly, at first I thought it was a joke i thought it was fake because i received the email from someone who had seen the list so he sent me the link and said oh you've just been featured on beyonce.com and so i sent him a message replying and saying show me proof i don't believe you and i did click it and it was real and i I was just like all over the place. And, you know, I went to my mom.

My mom doesn't know who Beyonce is. And she goes, so what does that mean? I'm like, you don't worry about it. You're going to see what it means. And then, you know, shortly after we started to get orders, I'm like, this is what it means. What advice do you have for people who want to make a difference? Like, it doesn't have to be big. Honestly, I don't consider like any of the things that i do big

enough so you know start with changing one person's life if you were just being kind to someone with the words that you share with them putting their names in like rooms where they're not present that you know might change their life i think just start with that and you know these things multiply shivoon ley speaking to Fatima Babakura. And that's all from The Happy Pod for now. We'd love to hear from you. As ever, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was made by the team here in Montreal,

Siobhan Leahy, Jacob Evans and our editor, Karen Martin. I'm Holly Gibbs and let's give the last words to the participants of the 2024 One Young World Summit. I'm leaving this summit feeling a lot less isolated because I had the privilege of being surrounded by community, being surrounded by other young advocates and I feel like I'm leaving here connected to a community of folks who are doing really good work and I And I feel like I'm leaving here connected to a community of folks who are doing really good work. And I know going forward, if I'm facing difficulties,

if I'm facing challenges, there are people I'm now connected to that I can reach out to for support. There's a community that I can lean on. I'm so inspired already about the amazing work people are doing. We work to help girls and women to end gender-based violence, child marriage, and female genital mutilation. So I'm very much inspired to go back to my country to do more work, to work harder, to help girls and women to live up to their full potential.

It has really reinstilled my belief in humanity and my optimism for the future. And there are so many young people from around the world that really care. I'm not alone in what I'm doing, and there's other young changemakers who are on the same path or different paths and we all are going to, we're going to change this world and it's one step at a time. We are strong alone, for sure. Every person has the ability to lead a movement,

but we are so much stronger together. You know what I was saying yesterday before bed, I was like, I want to be on a podcast and I was going to put it on my Instagram saying, I want to be on a big podcast next year. And here I am being interviewed by BBC. So my dream came to pass. Hallelujah. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was.

Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions. Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other

great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.