Welcome to the season 1 finale with host Simmone reflecting on what the last 6 months has been with the podcast by answering questions asked by her audience!
She reflects on which episode made her laugh, cry, reflect! as well as big learnings she's made a long the way and what's in store for season 2!
Thank you for listening, sharing and engaging with season 1- it means the world <3
Where can you find Simmone?
@simmoneahiaku on all socials
who/what does Simmone want to promote?
HUGE NEWS! The Home Sayings Podcast will be at SLACFest on Sunday 2nd November! Our amazing guest Siana from ep15, invited Simmone to be on the 'Africa Beyond Borders Panel'
Please get your tickets to the amazing SLACFest here: SLACfest - Sunday Programme
Meet Natalie Lartey, a narrative researcher and strategist working with social purpose
organisations. Her practice is focused on designing and using toolkits to centre racial
literacy and colonial memory as essential components of inclusive storytelling and
knowledge production. Natalie is the Director and Founder of Wood & Water, a social
enterprise that equips people with the tools they need to rethink inclusive storytelling
and knowledge production, in ways that better serve diverse racial groups and the wider
third sector.
Natalie began her career in environmental campaigning following several years of youth
activism raising awareness of deaths in police custody and stop and search in Black
British communities. She went on to lead campaigns and communications initiatives
for environmental and humanitarian aid organisations including Greenpeace, Action
Against Hunger, and Concern Worldwide.
With over twenty years’ social impact experience, Natalie has developed campaigns,
created content, and facilitated critical debate on inclusive storytelling in a range of
contexts including Western Europe, East and West Africa, South America, the
Caribbean and Southeast Asia. An innovator in her field Natalie has always bought her
combined English, Jamaican, and Nigerian heritage to her work.
She co-chairs the humanitarian sectors Pledge for Change authentic storytelling panel
and advises the International Institute for Environment and Development on ethical
knowledge generation and communication. Natalie holds an MRes in Communications
from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a BSc in Information and Publishing Studies
from Loughborough University.
Where can you find Natalie?
WoodWater_org on instagram and LinkedIn- Instagram + (7) Wood & Water: Posts | LinkedIn
Natalie Lartey on LinkedIn- (7) Natalie Lartey | LinkedIn
Who/What does Natalie want to promote:
Voices for Change: Stroies from the environmental movement at the British Library- Voices for Change: Stories from the Environmental Movement | British Library
Meet Siana Bangura [pronounced ‘see-anna’], a multi-award winning writer, producer, performer, curator, and community organiser, hailing from South East London, currently living, working, and creating between London and the West Midlands.
Siana is the founder and former editor of the Black British Feminist platform, No Fly on the WALL; she is the author of the critically acclaimed debut collection, ‘Elephant’, a book of poetry meditating on Black British womanhood and life growing up in London; the producer of ‘1500 & Counting’, a documentary film investigating deaths in custody and police brutality in the UK; the founder of Courageous Films, a social-justice focused documentary production house; and Producer at Siana Bangura Productions, a creative studio focusing on curating work, events and multi-layered experiences across the arts with care and intention. She is also co-founder and co-curator of the Sierra Leone Arts & Culture Festival (SLACfest).
As a playwright, Siana’s recent works include the play ‘Swim, Aunty, Swim!’, which was named Best New Play at the UK Theatre Awards and recognised at the Black British Theatre Awards 2024.
A multi-disciplinary leader, Siana works and campaigns on issues of race, class, and gender and their intersections and is currently working on projects focusing on climate justice, the arms trade, Tech Justice, and state violence. Her work has featured in publications such as The Guardian, The Metro, Evening Standard, Black Ballad, Consented, Green European Journal, The Fader, and Dazed as well as the 'Loud Black Girls' anthology, presented by Slay In Your Lane.
Across her vast portfolio of work, Siana’s mission is to help move voices and experiences traditionally marginalised, from the margins, to the centre.
@sianaarrgh everywhere but find me on Instagram
@sianabanguraproductions
www.sianabangura.com
The Sierra Leone Arts & Culture Festival (SLACfest) 2025 is coming to Theatre Peckham from Friday 31st October - Sunday 2nd November
deets here:
Follow @young_salone on Instagram
https://linktr.ee/YoungSL for links to grab tickets to the festival and to see more of our work
Meet Sophie Yates Lu (she/they), a Taiwanese and English community organiser, facilitator, artist and massage therapist. Her work focuses on communities at the sharp end of injustice, currently working with Decolonising Economics and People's Economy.
She also runs regular social meetups for neurodivergent people and is a parent to a cheeky toddler and a feisty dog.
Where can you find Sophie?
Instagram: http://instagram.com/sophieyatesluLinkedIn: Sophie Yates LuWhat/Who does Sophie want to promote?
Sophie runs No Migrant Justice Without Economic Justice, a programme for people working towards migrants justice who want to examine the intersection of that work and economic justice. To find out more, visit:https://peopleseconomyuk.org/get-involved/migrant-justice/www.instagram.com/peopleseconomyTo find out more about Decolonising Economics, visit www.instagram.com/decolonisingeconomics
Meet Iqra Iftikhar, a multidisciplinary creative. She thrives on connecting with others and sharing her sense of self, so that they feel comfortable to do the same.
She's constantly exploring who she am, through mental health advocacy, community, building meaningful relationships, and through creative pursuits.
Find out which home we visit next fortnightly Sunday
Meet Nonhlanhla Makuyana (they/them) , a Zimbabwean-born, UK-based community economist, educator, and community organiser. They are a co-director at Decolonising Economics, where they work to cultivate a Black and People of Colour-led solidarity economy movement.
Nonhlanhla’s research focuses on past, present, and future Afrikan and Afro-diasporic economies rooted in liberation. They are the curator of Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence, an oral history archival project exploring how the African oral tradition can help communicate the relationships, tools, and skills essential to historic and contemporary movements for Black British economic self-determination.
Their work aims to make community economics accessible to marginalised communities and, through political education, to shift resources, wealth, and power to transform local economies. Through training hundreds of community organisers, organisations, and groups, Nonhlanhla developed The Necessity Paths Framework, which represents the informal routes marginalised communities use to meet their needs when the capitalist system fails them, drawing inspiration from pluralist economies.
Where can you find Nonhlanhla?
@itmenoni
Who/What does Nonhlanhla want to promote?
Meet Abdirahim Hassan, the Founder Coffee Afrik CIC an award-winning lived experience-led community organisation working across Hackney and Tower Hamlets that aims to disrupt established systems and works with and for marginalised folk in a number of different ways.
Coffee Afrik is currently leading seven hubs, across 26 projects, which include a problematic drug use safe space for Muslims, a research lab, an award winning youth hub, two women’s hubs led by and for Muslim women, and a systemic litigation space.
Coffee Afrik have just been awarded £1,000,000 to further expand and scale its reach and model. Our work is inspired by everything rooted in Islam, land justice, reimagining public health and the Black Panther party and its community programming. Coffee Afrik is designed with key principles which include love, care and liberatory harm reduction
Where can you find Abdirahim?
@coffeeafrikcic on instagram and @coffeeafrique on X.
Who/What does Abdirahim want to promote?
Parliament event on the 15th July celebrating our latest research, recent grant award £400,000 and £1,000,000. Handing back our hubs to the community, through a structured governance framework.
See you next Sunday!
Meet Edward Adonteng, an essayist, poet, artist, gardener and academic from South London. He credits himself as a bridge builder, facilitating discourses on several themes and creating platforms for people to thrive and fully exercise their ingenuity.
Where can you find Edward?
IG: edwardadonteng
Website: https://edwardadonteng.info/
Who/What does Edward want to promote?
Edward's Substack. :@edwardadonteng.
Events-wise:
People can find all of these on my Instagram.
See you next Sunday!
Meet Naz Hamdi (aka NazfromNewham), a writer, archivist and curator from Newham, east London and she mostly documents music, film, nightlife and culture.
Where can you find Naz?
@NazfromNewham on all socials
See you next Sunday!
Meet Svetlana Chigozie Onye, a writer, journalist, singer, and climate justice advocate.
She leads The Eco-Anxiety Africa Project (TEAP), which investigates the mental health impacts of climate change on African youth and builds community resilience. She is currently producing a documentary about TEAP’s work.
A contributor to the UNICEF-backed African Youth Position Paper on Climate Change and Health, she is also a Director of the UK Youth Climate Coalition and has spoken at COP29 on transparency and governance. Her journalism centers on climate impacts in the Global South, and she has spoken with MPs on youth inclusion in climate policymaking.
As a singer-songwriter, her music has been played on BBC Radio, KISS, Soul Urge and more, and she was featured on BBC Women’s Hour discussing her songwriting journey. A TuWezeshe Fellow, she was selected for the Writers on the Rise Programme and shortlisted for the Heroica Poetry Prize.
Where can you find Svetlana?
Insta: @storyofsvetlana @hertempestongue @notactuallyradical @teap.africa
Who/What does Svetlana want to promote?
See you next Sunday!
Meet Radhika, a writer, community organiser and certified romantic. She writes fiction about our tangled lives and loves, and is part of a wonderful group in Tower Hamlets using the arts to campaign for food and land justice in gentrifying London.
Experiencing a big grief this year has made her understand how grief and beauty are life-long neighbours. Her cousin Nirali taught her all she know about love, and now she see her in beautiful places everywhere: in blossom trees, in the moon, on the dance floor.
She believes in the possibility of this world to resist the many cruelties of capitalism and be better. So she also believea in writing postcards, going to demos with your friends, finding one million ways to say I love you to loved ones, that embracing ‘cringe’ and earnestness leads to freedom, and appreciating the feeling of awe moving through her when it does.
Where can you find Radhika?
Follow our food and land project at @foodjusticeldn, and @raaads for writing things, plus a whole lot of mushy paragraphs about how much I luv my friends. Who/What does Radhika want to promote?
Come see Rukhsati at @theatre503 and follow my beautiful friends doing beautiful work at @abolitionisthealing and @dancewithzah_
See you next Sunday!
Meet Samia Dumbuya, a British-born Sierra Leonean who is an advocate for better climate education and for public policies to integrate the principles of climate justice in the shaping of our societies and economies.
Samia is interested in green transitions on the African continent and loves talking about Afrofuturism and natural landscapes across Africa.
They founded The People's Ark, a project focusing on upskilling communities across the UK to gain green technical skills.
Where can you find Samia?
IG - @samiadumbuya
IG - @peoplesark
Linkedin: Samia Dumbuya
Who/What does Samia want to promote?
The People's Ark Launch taking place on the 31st (direct them to the page to find out more)
IG: @fambul and @youngsalone
See you next Sunday
Meet Sara Bafo, a community organizer, youth practitioner and educator. Her work is rooted in envisioning and building transformative educational programs and practices. She has spent over a decade in grassroots movements rooted in abolitionist, anti-imperialist and liberatory principles.
Where can you find Sara:
sara.bafo - Instagram // SaraSabriye - Twitter
Who/What does Sara want to promote?
Her writing:
https://healingjusticeldn.org/in-practice/community-grieving-in-endz/
https://shado-mag.com/articles/hear/honouring-our-ancestors-in-activism-in-conversation-with-arowah/
https://shado-mag.com/education/know/what-is-abolition/
https://www.jmb-consulting.co.uk/uncharitablepapers/we-destroy-imperialism
Meet Indira Toussaint – a poet, educator, and all-around culture curator repping Saint Lucia with pride!
Indira’s work dives into the stories of the Caribbean diaspora, exploring everything from identity and history to the power and beauty of Black and Indigenous resilience.
She’s the co-founder of Twossaints, a vibrant platform that brings the Caribbean to the world through language, culture and the arts. Whether she’s teaching Kwéyòl, crafting poetry that hits you right in the heart, or curating unforgettable cultural experiences, Indira’s all about keeping Caribbean heritage alive—and making it feel fresh, relevant, and global.
Where can you find Indira: @indii45 / @twossaints - Instagram // TwossaintsTV - Youtube
Who/What does Indira want to promote:
What is Common About the Wealth? - available on spotify and Youtube !
"If you’re vibing with the culture and want to bring a Twossaints storytelling supper club experience to your workplace, head over to www.twossaints.com to get in touch!"
See you next Sunday
Meet Larissa, a British Caribbean theoretician, movement griot (storyteller), and community organiser from South London with roots in Jamaica, Barbados, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Larissa is founding chair of TALAWA, a Black-led collective focused on the power of liberated education and imagination to grasp at the root of social and climate injustice.
At shado, Larissa is a writer, editor, and co-host of the shado-lite podcast which discusses the big social justice issues we often see discussed on social media, supporting our community to move from apathy and overwhelm to collective action and hopeful pathways forward.
Larissa is currently a postgrad student at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and has previously studied in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. She loves language learning, soca music and dancing bachata. Larissa's lifework is driven by faith and fellowship.
Where can you find Larissa:@larissa_kennedy_ / @talawacollective / @shado.mag
Who/What does Larissa want to promote:
She said watch out for all things on @talawacollective and @shado.mag
See you next Sunday!
Meet Elike (@Elike9), a creative, writer, mover and shaker!
Elike gets into why community is important, their relationship with their dad, their Ewe heritage and how putting in small efforts each day keeps us grounded and working towards our hopes and dreams <3
See you next Sunday!
We kick off our first ever episode with the podcast host Simmone Ahiaku!
She delves into the making of this podcast, her saying and the beauty of everyone being a mosaic of everyone who has ever loved them.
You can find Simmone at @simmmoneahiaku on all socials!
This gives an intro to what future episodes will be about in less than a minute. You'll hear some sayings from different cultures and I introduce myself as the host.