Woman's Hour

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Woman's Hour: Musician & singer, Abi Sampa; Celibacy; Chinaza Onyechi; Femicide

08/10/2021

Musician & singer, Abi Sampa; Celibacy; Chinaza Onyechi; Femicide

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Musician & singer, Abi Sampa; Celibacy; Chinaza Onyechi; Femicide

Abi Sampa describes herself as a "weird warbling electric Veena player".

Why choose celibacy? Winner of MetFilm School's 1st Black Student of Talent scholarship; Susan Ogilvy: painter of bird's nests; Using the definition femicide; Abi Sampa & her Veena.

Over the last few years, the figures around celibacy have generally been on the rise - particular amongst young women. What’s to be gained from making this life choice? And what should one know before deciding to become celibate? Anita speaks to sex therapist Danielle Bennett, and two women who have experience with celibacy. Laura Kennedy is in her 30’s and was celibate for six years. Shirley Yanez is in her 60s and became celibate as part of a conscious change in lifestyle.

Chinaza Onyechi has always dreamed of becoming a film maker but she says like other children from a Nigerian background she was encouraged to take up a more traditional career like law, medicine or engineering. But she is now one step closer to that film-making dream, after being awarded the MetFilm School's first Black Student of Talent scholarship. The scholarship covers full tuition fees for a year and could be worth around £50,000 depending on the course.

Susan Ogilvy rediscovered learning in her seventies. As a botanical artist from Somerset, she started a journey into painting nests she serendipitously found. This was the start of an ornithological education, specifically into birds nests. Ogilvy has since painted more than fifty bird nests from life, each time marvelling at its ingenious construction. They have been collated in her new book, Nests. The first in a genre that has been dominated by male authors with very little focus on birds nests. 

Do gender-neutral terms, such as "homicide" and "murder," systematically ignore targeted violence against women? Should femicide be seen as a separate category? If women are being killed specifically because they're women, does that matter? Do motives matter? Anita is joined by Karen Ingala Smith, co-founder of Femicide Census and Chief Exec of Nia, a charity that runs services for women and girls who have been subjected to sexual and domestic violence and abuse.

Abi Sampa describes herself as a "weird warbling electric Veena player".  She trained as a dentist and then appeared on The Voice in 2013, where she wowed the judges with her unique style of as a fusion of western pop and Indian classical music. She joins Anita to explain how she plays the electric Veena and to describe her performances with the orchestral Qawwalli Project, reviving old Sufi poems and putting their own spin on them musically with a western orchestral style.  

Presenter: Anita Rani
Producer: Kirsty Starkey

Interviewed Guest: Danielle Bennett
Interviewed Guest: Laura Kennedy
Interviewed Guest: Shirley Yanez
Interviewed Guest: Chinaza Onyechi
Interviewed Guest: Susan Ogilvy
Interviewed Guest: Karen Ingala Smith
Interviewed Guest: Abi Sampa

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Musician & singer, Abi Sampa; Celibacy; Chinaza Onyechi; Femicide

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