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Outlook: Activist, Widows and Harmony

Activist, Widows, Harmony

12/10/2014

Activist, Widows and Harmony

BBC World Service - Outlook, Activist, Widows and Harmony

Forest campaigner 'Mama' Aleta Baun, Indian widows homecoming, Harp and Kora fusion

Plane crash survivor reunited with airport manager; widows come home to Kolkata; 'locked-in' woman gets a degree; Indonesian forest campaigner; Welsh and Senegalese musical duo.

We bring together Sandira Michael and Tony Packeer. She was a passenger on an airliner bombed by the Tamil Tigers in 1986. He was a manager at Colombo airport, whose decision to delay the plane saved more than a hundred lives.

A group of Indian widows, rejected by their families, have been able to make an emotional visit to their home city, Kolkata. They are among thousands of widows who have struggled to make new lives in the temple town of Vrindavan.

Dawn Faizey Webster was almost completely paralysed by a stroke 11 years ago, shortly after the birth of her son. Despite only being able to communicate by blinking and tiny head movements, she's just completed a degree in ancient history. 

'Mama' Aleta Baun belongs to the indigenous Molo people of Indonesian West Timor. When quarries and forest clearance threatened their way of life, she started a resistance movement.

Catrin Finch from Wales and Seckou Keita from Senegal are a harp duo who have performed all over the world. But they play very different instruments.Catrin's harp is the six-foot European classical version, and Seckou's is the kora, made from a large calabash gourd.

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