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Outlook: Mrs Sparkle: The Trauma Cleaner

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Sandra Pankhurst - Mrs Sparkle - The Trauma Cleaner (credit: Robyn Buccheri)

16/04/2018 GMT

Mrs Sparkle: The Trauma Cleaner

BBC World Service - Outlook, Mrs Sparkle: The Trauma Cleaner

Sandra Pankhurst clears up crime scenes and deep cleans for extreme hoarders

It can be horrible work, dealing with other people's trauma but Sandra Pankhurst says she's had enough of her own to make her good at it.

Sandra Pankhurst, also known as Mrs Sparkle is a trauma cleaner in Melbourne, Australia. Sandra's job involves clearing crime scenes and emptying the homes of extreme hoarders. Sandra often meets people at their lowest point but she draws on the traumatic experiences in her own life in order to help others.

For many decades, so-called "cinema travellers" have been visiting remote rural areas of India and showing films to people who otherwise wouldn't get to see them. For the last ten years, filmmaker Amit Madheshiya has been recording them and their decline as modern technology makes them redundant.

John Corcoran grew up in the US during the 1940s and 50s. As a kid, John was really looking forward to going to school like his older siblings. But once he got there, he realised he had a problem: he couldn't learn how to read and write. John felt demoralised and degraded, but he kept his secret for more than 40 years. During that time he managed to finish school, graduate, and he even became a high school teacher. How did he do that?

Image: Sandra Pankhurst
Credit: Robyn Buccheri

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