The Conversation

Lyric soprano Danielle de Niese was a star performer at Last Night of the Proms 2015. It was another milestone in this Australian-born American star's glittering career. Growing up, Danielle won various talent and television competitions and debuted at New York's prestigious Metropolitan Opera House when she was 19 years old. She says she knew she wanted to sing opera from the age of eight. Descri...

Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir grew up on an Icelandic farm that has been in her family for three generations. She has always loved Icelandic goats - a rare and beautiful breed - and when she took over the family farm she decided to concentrate on raising them. Iceland did not have a big market for goat products but Jóhanna slowly built a customer base for her goats milk, cheese, wool and meat. A...

Visaka Dharmadasa is a celebrated Sri Lankan peace activist whose son went missing in action in 1998, while fighting for the Sri Lankan army against Tamil Tiger rebels. She won a landmark case against the government to get DNA checks done to trace missing soldiers and she works with mothers from both sides of the conflict, Tamils and Sinhalese, for a peaceful future. Visaka's work and her belief t...

Sangduen 'Lek' Chailert comes from the small hill tribe village of Baan Lao in northern Thailand. At a young age she heard the screams of an elephant that was being forced to work in terrible conditions for the logging industry. Lek felt compelled to help it. Although she had no training she bought some medicine and soon she was being called upon to treat other local elephants. She later formed th...

Lauren LeRoy is a 25-year-old funeral director from New York State. She says she knew she wanted to do this job from the age of 12. Lauren works at a funeral home established by her great uncle, and explains that you have to be good at reading a situation to know how to deal with each grieving family. The worst part of the job for Lauren is the moment just before she closes the casket for the fina...

Jenny Brusk didn't know what she was letting herself in for when she enrolled in a university Masters course in computing in 1990. She went on to become Sweden's first female games developer but she was often mistaken for the company receptionist. The experience made her stronger. She says, "rather than go hide somewhere in the office I would fill my space". Jenny is now researching how game chara...

Iliana Fokianaki is from Athens and is an art curator, critic and journalist. She also runs a non-profit contemporary art gallery which opened its doors in the Greek capital last year. Iliana describes seeing people rummaging through bins on a daily basis, which didn't happen before the crisis. She is in her mid-thirties and reveals that even though she would like to have a child, she can't becaus...

Anastasia IV from Poland joined the circus at eighteen. She performs one of the most risky and unusual acts in the circus: hair-hanging. Anastasia endures pain in her scalp and neck as she swings around the auditorium suspended by a metal ring which is plaited into her hair. She says it's 'the closest you can get to actually flying like a bird' Sarah Swarz grew up in a circus family in Germany and...

Simone Singh is an award winning Indian television and film actress. She became a household name for playing the title role in the popular serial drama Heena. The audience was sympathetic to the heroine of this show, but Simone says even when she played a "baddie" she doesn't lose fans because "they remember your past work, they love you anyway". Sarah Mayberry works on Australia's longest running...

Mahboba Rawi was a teenager when the Soviet-Afghan War broke out. She led protests against Soviet control in her high school. After she was nearly arrested, she decided to flee the country. Along with millions of others, Mahboba made the ten day walk to the border with Pakistan, not knowing whether she would ever see the relatives she was leaving behind again. Eventually, she married an Afghan-Aus...

Agony aunt Criselda Kananda found out she was HIV positive 16 years ago and was given two years to live. Determined to change her fate, the South African discovered that most of the information available about the illness was full of stereotypes and judgements. So she made it her mission to help others and became a well-known radio and TV presenter, offering advice on health and well-being. But th...

Maureen Kamari's cakes were always a hit in her office. They were so popular with her colleagues that they started to pay her to bake birthday cakes. Maureen realised she could turn her skills into a business and set up Amari Quickbreads, a bakery delivery service. She also passes her kitchen know-how on to other would-be cooks by giving training sessions. However, Maureen reveals that her path to...

Captain Niloofar Rahmani is a pilot in the Afghan Air Force. Although there were female helicopter pilots before her, she is the first woman in the history of Afghanistan's military to fly a fixed-wing plane. The 23-year-old takes charge of cargo planes which are used to carry people and supplies to conflict zones. She was inspired, she says, "by my father's dreams." After Niloofar's story was fir...

Jane Serwanga started her career with ambitions of being a high-earning commercial lawyer, but a revelation that the law can discriminate against women inspired her to enter women's rights law . Now she works with Equality Now, an international women's rights advocacy organisation. She might be working on a case defending the rights of one woman to inherit property or be safe from violence, but sh...

Grammy award-winning backing singer Lisa Fischer has been performing with The Rolling Stones since 1989. She says duetting with Mick Jagger is electric, "he's unpredictable and he's exciting and he's mischievous". Lisa grew up in a musical family and trained to be an opera singer, but soon swapped the theatre for the New York club scene. She describes Luther Vandross as her mentor; he taught her t...

Elizabeth Stone has swum for Team USA in three Paralympic Games and has won three medals. Her achievements are all the more surprising because she started life in a Georgian orphanage. Elizabeth got her first prosthetic at 4 years old and not wearing it in the water is part of the reason she loves her sport. Her sporting fame led to an emotional reunion with her birth family in Georgia. Elizabeth...

Lorena Feijoo is a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet. Lorena was born into the world of ballet in her native Havana. Her mother was a dancer with Cuba's National Ballet and she remembers being looked after by the costume managers whilst her mum was performing. Her sister Lorna also followed in her footsteps and Lorena is now married to a dancer, she has performed with both of them. Lo...

Colombian Tatiana Calderón has gone from a teenage go-kart champion to a Formula 3 driver who reaches 280 kph at top speed. Her sights are set firmly on Formula 1. Tatiana is mentored by one of F1's most prominent women, the test driver Susie Wolff, and she describes how that's helped her handle other people's doubts about her abilities. Aggression on the track, training hard in the gym, and techn...

When Maria Luisa Catrambone helps to treat children who have serious burns and bloody injuries she says you need to control your facial expressions carefully and not show any sign of shock, so you don't scare them. This is something the teenager has learnt to do when going on rescue missions with the Migrant Offshore Aid Station - saving men, women and children from drowning in the Mediterranean S...

Naballah Chi is a 25-year-old fashion blogger, model and hijab stylist from Trinidad and Tobago. Her blog celebrates colourful clothes inspired by her Caribbean island home, but it also addresses the concerns and questions of her followers. Naballah has worn the hijab since kindergarten, but as an aspiring model she acknowledges that keeping the commitment can be a struggle and describes the guilt...

Cecilia Braekhus is considered one of the best female boxers, pound for pound, in the world. She's known in the ring as'The First Lady, because she was the first woman to be taken on by one of Europe's biggest boxing promoters and has held all of the major boxing belts simultaneously. It hasn't been easy for Cecilia to make it in her career: boxing was banned in her native Norway until 2014, so sh...

Kira Lea Dargin's parents met at church. Her mother is white from a Russian family who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s, and her father is Aboriginal Australian. Being "mixed" Kira says, means constantly having to explain how you came about or how your family manages to blend. Having come through some difficult times as a teenager Kira now happily identifies with both of her cultural background...

Emily Otali is a primatologist from Uganda. She's been told that she's the first black African woman to earn a PhD in the subject. On an early field trip she broke the rules and made direct eye-contact with a female chimpanzee, but that was the moment she 'fell in love' and found her vocation. Emily's job now is to observe a community of chimpanzees in Uganda's Kibale National Park and study their...

Leslea Newman has written more than sixty children's books. She says she can't remember a time when she didn't want to be a writer. As a teenager Leslea got her work published in magazines and she also worked as Alan Ginsberg's apprentice. When a friend told her she couldn't find any books for her daughter that portrayed a family like hers, with two lesbian parents, Leslea decided she needed to do...

Luisa Clasen AKA Lully is a video blogger, or "vlogger" from Brazil. Her vlogs about art and culture, shot from her apartment in Rio de Janeiro, have attracted nearly 180,000 YouTube subscribers. Lully launched her channel giving fashion tips, but then refocused it on her first passion, filmmaking. Advertisers love her, so Lully's able to make a living from her online posts. She says she's nicer t...