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Factual: Life Stories

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

Outlook: Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

Bonya Ahmed, Ashley White, Thupten Jinpa

12/07/2015

Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

BBC World Service - Outlook, Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

Widow of Murdered Activist , Teen Spelling Star, The Dalai Lama's translator

The widow of a Bangladeshi activist who saw her husband's murder, American child spelling star who pulled herself back from hard times,Thirty years translating for the Dalai Lama

Bonya Ahmed's life was torn apart in February when she and her husband were attacked by men with machetes on the streets of Dhaka. She was badly injured but her husband Avijit Roy died.  Avijit was well-known for promoting a scientific and secular view of life and his views made him enemies in his home country of Bangladesh.  Despite the trauma, Bonya has vowed to continue her husband's work and recently visited London to deliver a speech called Fighting Machetes with Pens at the British Humanist Association. 

Dr Nikitas Kanakis is the director of the Greek branch of Medecins du Monde or Doctors of the World - it's an international charity that is more used to providing disaster relief in Africa and Asia, but is now treating 80,000 patients in Greece who find themselves unable to buy medicine or access basic health care. Dr Kanakis has been volunteering his services since the 1990s and talks about the devastating effect of the financial crisis on Greece's health care system.

For the last 30 years, Thupten Jinpa has been the Dalai Lama's English translator. Jinpa's family left Tibet for India at the same time as their spiritual leader went into exile, in 1959. A chance event when he was a young monk led to his meeting the Dalai Lama, and a new career interpreting for His Holiness around the world. 

When she was thirteen, Ashley White took part in America's prestigious annual 'spelling Bee' competition.  It involves students competing with each other in front of an audience to gain the title of the nation's best young speller.  In Ashley's year a successful documentary film called Spellbound was made about the contest.  Ashley was brought up by her single parent mum in a tough Washington DC neighbourhood. The film shows her as bubbly, and full of grit and determination to do the best she can.  But by the time the documentary arrived in cinemas in 2002, Ashley was pregnant and homeless.

Picture: Bonya Ahmed with her husband Avijit Roy; Ashley White; Thupten Jinpa (Left) with The Dali Lama - credit: Getty Images

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