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Outlook: Boxing Saved My Life

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Australian boxing star Joe Williams

23/03/2016 GMT

Boxing Saved My Life

BBC World Service - Outlook, Boxing Saved My Life

Australian boxing star Joe Williams on his big fight with depression

In his twenties Joe Williams seemed to have it all - adoring fans and plenty of money as a star rugby player. But secretly he was struggling with drink, drugs and depression.

As a top rugby player Joe Williams was a role model for members of his Waidjuri aboriginal group from New South Wales. But his success disguised a fierce struggle with  depression and problems with drink and drugs. It was only when he managed to quit the substance abuse and took up boxing that he turned his life around. 

Tony Hawks is a British writer and comedian who has taken on some very strange challenges. To win bets,  he's played tennis against the entire Moldovan football team, cycled around southern England with a pig, and had a hit record in Albania. He's put these escapades into books and films. It all started when he hitchhiked round Ireland with a fridge. 

Outlook speaks to the indigenous Brazilian tribesman who's gone from documentary subject to documentary film maker. Takumã Kuikuro's unlikely career began in his remote home village of Ipatse in the state of Mato Grosso in central Brazil. The village is eight hours by river and road from the nearest small city. Most young men of the Kuikuro people are expected to stay in their village.  But Takumã's destiny changed when an organisation called "Video in Villages" came along and handed over filming equipment to the community so they could record themselves and their own traditions.  

Two years ago a district judge in New York City declared a mistrial in a bribery case involving a state senator, because dozens of hours of phone conversations had not been translated. They were all in Yiddish. It's a language that UNESCO describes as 'endangered.'  One of the few people in New York who could help was 71-year-old Ruth Kohn. She's the Yiddish court translator.  

Photo: Joe Williams
Credit: Joe Williams

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