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My Childhood Friend, the Rapist

Redi Tlhabi on the notorious Soweto gangster who befriended her when she was eleven, and whose life she investigated as an adult.

South African media host Redi Tlhabi, a prominent anti-rape campaigner, tells the story of the Soweto gangster and rapist who befriended her as a child. Her exploration of how a friend could also be a monster is described in her book "Endings & Beginnings" (published by Jacana).

Barbara Smith Conrad is an internationally-celebrated opera singer, but her career started in controversy. She was one of the first African-Americans to be admitted into the University of Texas in 1956 - before that it had been a whites-only campus. She tells Matthew how being cast in a university opera opposite a white leading man led to protests which changed her life.

We attend rehearsals with a very unusual orchestra in Paraguay: all their instruments are made out of rubbish. The young players of the Re-cycled Instruments Orchestra come from a slum district of the Paraguayan capital Asuncion - where most of the community works on the local rubbish dump. The orchestra, which is nicknamed the "Landfill Harmonic", can't afford proper instruments, so they make them with materials found on the dump.

And we travel into the heart of one of India's biggest tiger reserves, to meet a member of the Lisu hill tribe - one of the world's smallest ethnic groups. Government conservation plans mean they face eviction from their traditional homeland.The place where the world tells its story.

Picture: South African radio and TV host Redi Tlhabi

Available now

55 minutes

Last on

Tue 7 May 2013 02:05GMT

David Yobin

David Yobin

David Yobin of the Lisu hill tribe.聽Government conservation plans mean they聽face eviction from their traditional homeland聽in Namdapha National Park, north eastern India, 聽which is also home to one of the country's biggest tiger reserves. 聽

Broadcasts

  • Mon 6 May 2013 11:05GMT
  • Mon 6 May 2013 21:05GMT
  • Tue 7 May 2013 02:05GMT

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Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary

Step into someone else鈥檚 life and expect the unexpected