The MiMi YouYou Show - Creating Empathy

Trigger Disclaimer: This episode contains information about sexual abuse. This show offers up the extremely candid story of childhood sexual abuse, told through the lens of the same young man, now it mid adulthood. Having experienced abuse within his family, and amongst those they had trusted most, the young boy does eventually report his reality and then seen his abuser convicted and jailed. The...

What Interviewing a Suspected Serial Killer and His Victims Taught One Man About Empathy. "The first time he called, I was home with family on a Saturday afternoon in 2022. I asked if he had time later to continue our conversation. “Yeah, I have nothing planned,” he laughed." It was a funny line. His name was Billy Chemirmir, and he was in the Dallas County jail awaiting trial on eighteen counts o...

Can you imagine waking up one day and being thrown out of the country you have grown up in? Can you imagine having to call your girlfriend to say "goodbye" and that you will never see her again, and then getting on a plane with only your father, leaving your mother and sister to be flown to an entirely different country to never see them again? Can you imagine the tenacity you need to be called an...

Can you imagine growing up in a home where you have to compete with your siblings in order to be able to eat, go to school, and sleep? Our guest today can,  as that was her reality growing up in a polygamist home in Nigeria with eight siblings.  Growing up in the slums, our guest was exposed to young girls being raped and teenage pregnancies from an early age. While many may have accepte...

Do women's lives always matter? It's a question with such a seemingly obvious answer and yet in so many parts of the world this is not a given. Our guests in this show shares her powerful - and yet often controversial - work in women's rights with specific focus on the right to choose an abortion, safely. She explains the stories of women from around the world who do not have the right to choose a...

Can you imagine leaving home for work not knowing if you'd come back alive to your children and family? Every single day. Today's guest faces that reality. The reality of not knowing whether she'd live to see another day as soon as she steps out of her home every day. Living amidst The Anglophone Crisis where Cameroon is losing all of its sons and daughters in the conflict, our guest emphasises th...

In this episode, we are joined by a woman living deep in Northern Nigeria with the terror of Boko Haram. She joins the show today because she sees her story as her superpower and that sharing her story far and wide is important for her because “You never can tell who you are influencing, you never can tell who will empathise with your story and somehow make a change or be encouraged to do somethin...

Can you imagine living, knowing you are going to die? This show allows us to step into the shoes of Africa's longest living triple organ transplant survivor and to follow her lifelong journey to becoming “well” (and staying alive!). As she talks us through her entire childhood and youth spent wishing that she could breathe as her friends did, she shares what true gratefulness for he...

This episode comes from India where our guest tell us of his decision to leave his corporate career to become a “Mentor Father” to over 38 abandoned, abused or orphaned girls. Having found the true meaning and purpose of his life he explains how he has devoted his heart, mind, soul and wealth as a full-time volunteer and a ‘Mentor Father’ for over 10 years. Telling of his journey to chan...

"Daddy fell asleep, mummy" Our guest this week shares the moment when her husband fell "asleep" reading a bedtime story to her 6 year old daughter, and never woke up. She tells us how she moved on from being the person she "used to be" as she said goodbye to her high school love and became a single mom. Realising that "the person I was prior to this night, knew nothing about the world I had to go...

Can you ever overcome the loss of your children? Does time ever really heal anything at all? Are we all getting "grief all wrong" and what does this mean? Our guests today shares the story of the tragic accident that saw his teenage children, Ruby and Hart, killed by a drunk driver just four years ago. He honestly recounts his journey to share this experience widely with others to help more people...

When you dream of having a baby you don't often stop to wonder what that dream really entails. For many new mothers post natal depression is an unexpected and often unknown reality of becoming a mum. Our guest in this episode shares her journey as the sadness she felt postpartum led her all the way to hospitalised care. Within a traditional community, that found the reality hard to understand, she...

"Mummy, who will die first, me or my cousin?" Losing a child is reality that many people feel they could never survive. In this episode our guest talks us through her own journey facing the acute illness and loss of her young daughter. She recounts the conversations they had around life and death, and how terminal illness becomes a "truth serum" that leads to living life consciously connected to t...

A mum of three joins the show to talk about the realities, opportunities and challenges associated with being the mum to teenagers who she terms as "Wonderfully Wired" - which she uses to refer to her own children, and those of others, who experience giftedness or neurodiversity in some form. She bravely unpacks how learning for children with neurodiversity is often seen as a draw back but that in...

When you lose someone close to you it often prompts us to reconsider "what would I do if I knew my own days were numbered?" In this episode our guest asked himself this exact question and decided that whilst he had loved his corporate life, it was time for a change and he headed on a sabbatical to train as a Field Guide on a safari camp in Africa. When his year ended he wasn't ready to come home a...

Kicking off Season 2 with a never seen before format, this show features two family members together, openly discussing their journey with transgender identity, acceptance and confidence. As the daughter of the family, a young woman shares her journey to finding her identity as a female, having being born a male, and takes us through a candid explanation of her reality to get to this moment. Her f...

Driven by his passion for mental health, a young professional steps out to gain practical experience after earning his psychology degree. Amidst the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, fate leads him to an opportunity to work with refugees, where he encounters an entirely parallel community living in his city. Deeply moved by their plight, he witnesses firsthand the diverse array of issues they g...

In this episode a young man shares his story of his struggles with a debilitating stutter throughout his childhood, feeling trapped and voiceless in his own body. Feeling a failure and amidst peak puberty and relentless teasing, he longs for change and looks ahead for a time when he can stand up and finally share his opinion. Fate intervenes and his family relocates from the UAE to India, where he...

 In this extremely emotional and unique episode, you will step into the world of a new mother just two days after giving birth, as she shares her unbelievable story for the first time ever. Having just given birth to her baby boy, her days postpartum are thrown into turmoil when a brain tumor diagnosis shatters her reality and leads her to a journey of tenacity as she fights to find Dr's who will...

In a dimly lit nightclub, our guest once danced to the rhythm of the night as a DJ. Little did he know, that the same rhythm would lead him down a long path of anxiety, addiction, and escapism. Seeking refuge from the darkness, he traded neon lights for the comforting aroma of the coffee, opening his own store and hoping to escape the demons of the drugs he had discovered in the night hours. Unfor...

After losing her step-father during her formative years, a woman finds herself spiraling into a prolonged period of depression. Desperate for a fresh start, she leaves the UK behind and embarks on a journey as a teacher, traveling the world in search of happiness. Despite the transient joy she experiences, her bouts of depression persist, leaving her emotionally drained and eventually finding a ne...

In the serene tranquility of their small mountain home, a woman and her partner relished a life filled with happiness. Nestled amidst nature's beauty, their cozy abode became a sanctuary of love and contentment. However, fate abruptly took a turn one fateful day. As her partner climbed down the mountain to retrieve a lost umbrella, a sudden misstep caused him to plummet, landing harshly on his bac...

Meet our guest, a woman whose life took an enchanting turn when she fell in love with a Muslim man. Thinking she could never take it further due to their different backgrounds, their connection deepened she soon found herself walking toward a religion she knew nothing about. Bravely embracing her newfound faith, she embarked on a transformative journey (in secret), guided by prayer and self-discov...

Expat life looks so glamorous, but is it all it looks to be? In this episode, a woman initially embraces the trailing spouse role with enthusiasm, heading to India with her young family. However, as time passes and reality settles in, she begins to lose sight of her true purpose and finds her own depression, along with a slew of unspeakable behaviours around her, turns her Asian dream into a livin...

Freedom of speech doesn't exist equally yet in our world. But have you stopped to think what this really means? Have you ever imagined the reality of being taken to jail simply for saying something online that others don't agree with? There are many parts of the world where people still cannot speak their mind without fearing consequences. In this episode, one man's unwavering honesty led him to t...