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Outlook: Leaving My Family's Homophobic Church

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Megan Phelps-Roper

30/12/2015 GMT

Leaving My Family's Homophobic Church

BBC World Service - Outlook, Leaving My Family's Homophobic Church

Megan Phelps-Roper belonged to a church famous for picketing the funerals of gay people

Megan Phelps-Roper belonged to the Westboro Baptist Church, famous for picketing the funerals of gay people and soldiers. Then a message on social media changed her life forever.

Megan Phelps-Roper grew up believing that many of the terrible things that happen in the world - diseases, deaths, natural disasters - are God's punishment for sinners. She was born into the Westboro Baptist Church, which became notorious for picketing the funerals of gay Aids victims and soldiers.  From a very young age, Megan went on those pickets, holding signs that said things like 'Same-sex marriage dooms nations' and 'Thank God for 9/11'. Then as a young adult Megan got onto a social networking service - and her whole life changed.

Nigerian Nike Davies-Okundaye says she found her independence through art and now she is helping other women to do the same. She trained in Adire, a traditional indigo-dyed cloth worn by women in south-western Nigeria, and featuring hand-painted patterns of birds, shells, and geckos. She also makes watercolours inspired by these fabrics and the stories behind them. 

According to a recent estimate, nearly two thirds of the population of South Africa is now overweight and that figure is rising. One man from Cape Town is on a mission to change this and he's set up a bakery specialising in bread made with spinach. Our reporter Mohammed Allie has been to see Lufefe Nomjana, otherwise known as Doctor Spinach.

Lynne Jones is a British psychiatrist who works with children around the world who have experienced trauma and violence. Recently for Outlook she returned to Kosovo to interview a woman she helped after she survived an attack during the Kosovo war. 

(Picture: Megan Phelps-Roper
Picture credit: Michelle Wray)

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