Tea with the Changemakers – Details, episodes & analysis

Fatherhood is a brilliant yet daunting concept in any man’s life. While you’re worrying whether you’ve sterilised enough bottles or how many nappies to take out friendship is the least of your worries. But as we age and become fathers it can become an increasingly lonely and isolated time, you’ve got your family unit but outside of that, there may not be an awful lot.

Well, this is what happened to this week's podcast guest, Dan Flanagan, who founded Dad La Soul, a support group just for fathers! Whether you’re a single dad, married, gay, or trans Dad La Soul is there for any dad at any stage of their journey into Dadulthood.

On the podcast this week Andy and Dan talk about the history of Dad La Soul and why and how Dan set it up, how fathers often neglect their mental health and candidly talk about what it’s like when things aren’t going exactly how you thought they would.

All this and more on this week's Tea with the Changemakers.

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This week on the podcast we're opening the box marked too difficult once again - we're talking about miscarriage, discussing it openly and tackling the stigma surrounding it.

Jennie Agg, an award-winning freelance health journalist, who has been featured in newspapers and magazines including The Times and the Daily Telegraph joins us on this episode to talk about her lived experience of miscarriage.

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A new social media platform that’s committed to being socially responsible... What?! This is definitely not the Metaverse!

This week on Tea with the Changemakers, we introduce you to a new way of doing social media. In this episode, Andy chats to Sue Fennessy, the founder of WeAre8, about how the B Corp certified brand is going to shake up socials, by putting 50% of advertising revenue from videos users choose to watch into their 8Wallets - cash it out, pay it forward to charity, or even put it towards your EE phone bill. 

Andy and Sue chat all things social media - the good, the bad and the legless (sorry Metaverse!), the upsides and downsides of super-apps, wealth redistribution, and how social media networks need to empower their users.

Check out this blog post on our website to read in more detail about how WeAre8 are empowering users to create powerful and meaningful social change in just 8 minutes each day! 

Just a quick warning: This episode contains a fair few instances of strong language throughout- it can’t always be helped, as we’re a passionate bunch here at Tea with the Changemakers, but hopefully you’ll still choose to grab yourself a brew and enjoy this episode! 

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“Life’s not fair” - ever had anyone tell you that? Isn’t it time that life was ‘fair’? 
 
This week on the podcast, Andy's chatting with Sarah Atkinson, CEO of The Social Mobility Foundation, and Hannah Ayane, a graduate from their Aspiring Professional Programme. 

A recent study carried out by The SMF found that professionals from working-class backgrounds earn on average £6,718 less than someone from a more advantageous background in the same job. Furthermore, The SMF found that even at leadership level in businesses, working-class chief executives earn on average £16,749 less than their peers.  

The Social Mobility Foundation are the people tackling those statics and working to rid society of systemic barriers holding back working-class professionals. They exist to provide opportunities for 16-17-year-olds who may be unable to get career support from their schools or families.  

The SMF work with young people from all across the UK, in their years prior to and during university, and their Aspiring Professionals Programme offers tailored support across 11 career sectors including, accountancy, architecture, banking & finance, biology & chemistry, business, digital, engineering & physics, law, media & communications, medicine, and politics.

https://www.socialmobility.org.uk/

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This week on the podcast Kelly's chatting with Catherine Benfield, a mother and qualified teacher who's living with OCD.


Catherine, who was diagnosed with OCD after giving birth to her son, started a blog on her experience of living with OCD; how she dealt with it was to personify and externalise it in the form of cheeky character, Olivia!

Catherine bought her OCD to life in the form of Olivia, an incredibly stubborn hare/ alien. "Olivia takes the things that go through my mind, the types of things that go through EVERYBODY’S mind, and turns them into something they really don’t need to be. She takes anything from thoughts to images, to urges (for ease of writing in future I’ll refer to these under the umbrella term of ‘thoughts’) and runs with them. In fact, Olivia worries so much, that when she senses a thought she doesn’t like the look of, she investigates it straight away, and if she’s not sure about the findings of this investigation, she repeats it… and repeats it… and repeats it - she is nothing if not thorough!" Catherine Benfield.

www.tamingolivia.com

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This week on the podcast Andy's chatting with Stephen Buckley, head of information at Mind; the charity who are actively fighting for mental health by providing advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. Stephen, one of Mind's spokespeople, manages their Infoline and is Mind's in-house expert on all things mental health. 

In this week's episode, Stephen speaks to Andy about how important it is to look after your mental health, seek out help when things get too much, how COVID has affected the collective mental state of the country, and how the cost of living crisis could see a spike in mental health problems, disproportionately among those who are already struggling.

Mind provides a wide range of services that aim to support people on their journey to better mental health, and after recently re-branding are definitely not passive in their approach, they're now more boldly "fighting for mental health".

Visit their website to find out how you can support Mind in various ways, including donating and fundraising.

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On the show this week, we’re joined by bio-bean’s Managing Director, George May, and he'll be chatting to Andy about how bio-bean are utilising spent coffee grounds from the 98 million cups of coffee that the UK consumes every day.

bio-bean work with some of the largest companies in the UK, including Costa, Greggs, and McDonald's, to transform spent coffee grounds into something of value and contribute to a circular economy. This best-for-the-world B Corp was founded over 8 years ago by Arthur Kay, a student at the time when he noticed a film of oil collecting on his americano. Arthur was struck by the amount of spent coffee wasted every day, and with the knowledge that the grounds contain oil, a valuable fuel, vowed to do something more environmentally friendly with them.

bio-bean is all about creating change and difference for our world by innovating coffee waste. Through their Coffee Logs, stocked by many UK supermarkets, as well as coffee pellets and Inficaf-based products, bio-bean can divert millions of tonnes of spent coffee grounds from ever ending up in landfill.

Visit bio-bean's website to find out more!

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This week’s episode contains conversations about eating disorders and suicide. 

Zoe Burnett has first-hand experience in conquering atypical anorexia, and depression and is a suicide survivor. Now as a published author, TEDx speaker and charity worker (at First Steps Eating Disorder Service) she uses her lived experience to educate others, and rebel against unhealthy social norms.

On this week’s show, Zoe shares her story with Kelly and speaks candidly about what it’s like to live with an eating disorder and how it affects your mental health, set point theory and how she’s “recovering loudly so others don’t suffer in silence.”

Zoe continues to speak out because of the societal shift in attitude that’s needed regarding diet and weight. In this episode Zoe shares some shocking and alarming statistics with us.

·      Over 80% of 10-year-olds are now scared of being fat.

·      90% of teenage girls avoided an activity because of the way they looked.

·      87% of teenage boys avoided an activity because of the way they looked.

The statistics speak for themselves, and Zoe speaks out to ensure that we continue to have conversations about eating disorders in the hope that they will change attitudes, educate, and most importantly reach people who are struggling and may need help.

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“Where flowers bloom, so does hope”

— Lady Bird Johnson

This week on Tea with the Changemakers we're chatting with Jess Visser, founder of Strength & Stem, the charity that utilises floristry to empower women who have survived modern slavery.

Shockingly they're an estimated 136,000 victims of human trafficking in the UK today, and even more alarmingly 81% of trafficked victims in London are women. Jess wanted to do something to tackle this statistic. 

For two years Jess volunteered as a mentor and wanted to support disadvantaged women on their journey to employment. While volunteering Jess was able to witness the disadvantages women face first-hand. 

Jess' passion was and still is to help support women and help them to access skills training and employment. Jess is the Founding Trustee of Strength & Stem and has now expanded into South Africa through sister charity, Strength & Stem South Africa.

If you're a corporate that regularly orders flowers or you want to give the personal gift of socially responsible flowers to a loved one, then be sure to check out Strength & Stem's website.

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This week on the podcast we’re joined from Uganda by ex-Balenciaga designer Bobby Kolade, who has set up his fashion house BUZIGAHILL in Kampala, to challenge the Global North's consumption of fast fashion.

Bobby set Buzigahill up as a response to the Global North discarding clothes, often in poor condition, and exporting them to Africa. He was infuriated by the fact that people in the Global North believe that people in Africa (in countries such as Uganda) want sweat-stained and soiled clothes. 

Bobby identified that whilst fast fashion in the Global North exists then Uganda will forever be swamped by second-hand clothes, often of poor quality.

Bobby simply determined that enough was enough, and decided to send the second-hand clothes saturating Uganda's textile industry back to where they came from, by upcycling and repurposing them. Buzigahill’s first collection ‘Return to Sender’ does exactly that, selling clothes back to the Global North at an increased price, and is the catalyst that's reigniting Uganda’s textile industry.

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