Taban Shoresh OBE (born 1983) is a British aid worker, women's rights activist and founder of non-profit organisation: The Lotus Flower. She is also a Kurdish genocide survivor.

Due to her father's involvement with the Peshmerga (Kurdish Military) and prominence in Kurdish Literature, Taban's family were one of many Kurdish families persecuted by Saddam Hussein's regime. When Shoresh was four years old, the Iraqi Intelligence Service arrived at her home and arrested her mother along with her paternal grandparents. Shoresh was imprisoned for two weeks along with her family and many other Iraqi Kurds. In 1986 Shoresh's family narrowly escaped a mass live burial after the drivers of the vehicle transporting her and her family were changed; at the time some Kurdish people working for Sadam Hussein were in fact working for Kurds.

She founded The Lotus Flower charity in 2016. The organisation offers support to displaced female victims of conflict in the Middle East. The organisation is registered in London and has set up three centres in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The centres help vulnerable females access education and helps them with their wellbeing and mental health, which in turn helps refugee women reintegrate back into their communities.

In this extraordinary and deeply moving episode we hear about Taban’s own story and how she has gone on to use it to drive real change for women and girls in some of the world’s most dangerous places. She talks with real openness about her own struggles, about integration, finding a voice and having the courage to become an activist.

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL.

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Matt Doherty is an American former college basketball coach best known for his time as head coach of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team. Prior to accepting the head coaching position at UNC, he spent one season as head coach of the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's basketball program.

As a college player, Doherty started on the 1981–82 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team, which on March 29, 1982, won the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, defeating the University of Georgetown. Doherty played under the legendary college coach Dean Smith, and started alongside future National Basketball Association stars James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Kenny Smith, Brad Daugherty and Michael Jordan.

Prior to being named the head coach at Notre Dame, Doherty served as an assistant coach first at Davidson, then at Kansas. After leaving UNC, Doherty would go on to become head coach of the Florida Atlantic Owls, and the SMU Mustangs.

Outside of coaching, Doherty has also served as a college basketball commentator and as an NBA scout. His broadcast roles have included serving as a color commentator for various high school and college programs including Davidson. Doherty was most recently the Atlantic 10 Conference's associate commissioner for men's college basketball, resigning in April, 2019. Doherty went on to his current role as an executive coach, keynote speaker and author of the book REBOUND: From Pain to Passion - Leadership Lessons Learned.

In this provocative and thoughtful episode, Coach Doherty talks with deep insight about his own childhood, working in elite sports, about the parallels between coaching and teaching, the power of community, of coming to terms with failure, and about passion purpose, and self-care.

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL.

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Chloe Combi is a bestselling author, global speaker, futurist, researcher, and consultant whose primary area of expertise is young people – Generation Z and Generation A. She has interviewed over 20,000 young people globally and utilises that expertise to help schools, brands, companies, governments, and institutions understand and prepare for the present and future.

She is a generation expert who works in hundreds of schools, delivering one-off talks and bespoke long-term projects that benefit students and staff emotionally, socially, culturally, and academically. All her work is underwritten by serious quantitative and qualitative research and data and unparalleled knowledge, using a coveted and highly successful approach and methodology – one that has won rave reviews and a waiting list of schools.

Her expertise, research and data has her in huge demand with global companies, brands and governments and whether they want insight pieces, future-proofing, coaching, high level and entertaining talks, TV or radio work or transformational creative input. In light of the recent Netflix series, Adolescence, this is a timely conversation about supporting young people in incredibly complex times.

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About the host

Richard Gerver is a sought-after speaker, world-renowned thinker, and bestselling author of books including Change and Simple Thinking. His career began in education, first as a teacher and then as a school principal, when he turned the fortunes of a failing school and its pupils around in just two years.

Now regarded as one of the world's leading thinkers on human leadership and organisational transformation, Richard has worked with an extraordinary range of people, from elite athletes to former US President Barack Obama. Named UK Business Speaker of the Year three times, Richard has been invited to speak on the world’s most recognised stages, including TED, the RSA and the BBC.

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL.

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.