Born in Africa, Raised in Europe, Indian at heart: Sandhya Acevinkumar talks of Bollywood Weddings, Vitiligo, & Selfless Work [Ep 12]
Description
Sandhya is one of the women whose story appears in my book, Women Who Walk. She talks of a happy childhood growing up in the immigrant Indian community of Mozambique, where she was born. When Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in the mid-70s, escalating civil unrest caused her parents to abandon the comfortable life they’d built, and return to Gujarat in the north west of India to start over. Three years later, when she was 10, the family migrated again this time to Lisbon, Portugal in search of opportunities. In this episode we talk about her grown daughters and the family's tradition of Bollywood-style weddings, her vitiligo, which she has lived with since she was a teen, and the evolution of her work with the philanthropic foundation, Minhembeti, that she and her husband founded in Mozambique and where Sandhya is actively involved in seva or selfless work.
In this final episode of Women Who Walk, I bid farewell to podcasting (for now). Throughout the three seasons and 48 episodes, I’ve had the honor of interviewing globally mobile women, who shared stories of courage, adaptability, and resiliency moving multiple countries for work, for adventure,...
Published 05/25/23
Jo Francis Penn is English, currently living in Bath. As an 11-year-old, she lived in Malawi, Africa; in her teens she lived for a short period in Israel; and as a young adult she lived in New Zealand and Australia. Once back in the UK, she made a career change, moving from tech into writing...
Published 05/11/23