Do you ever wonder what the world would be like if more BIPOC women were in charge. Because, same. I think this week’s newsletter will give you a taste of what it would be like 👀

Let's get glowing

-Shilpa

News, News, News! 📰

Glowreel - Amplifying and celebrating women of colour; BIPOC women

Climate Crisis:
End the double standards for the Global South 🌍 Ugandan climate justice activist, Vanessa Nakate, is calling out the double standards on the climate crisis. African countries are at the frontline of the climate crisis. But Africa is responsible for less than 4% of global emissions. The severe impacts of climate change on Africa/the Global South are not making headlines in the way the recent heatwaves in the UK, Europe and the US are. Vanessa is calling for media to do better. And for governments to put their money where their mouth is: stop investing in fossil fuels!

See also: This tweet and this one too, from Indian-Australian climate justice advocate Varsha Yajman.

Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths (STEM):
More BIPOC women in STEM 👩🏾‍🔬 Star-Trek actress Sonequa Martin-Green has partnered with Million Girls Moonshot. Together, they’re aiming to get 1 million girls into STEM programs. Sonequa was inspired by the late Nichelle Nichols - a former Star-Trek actress who also advocated for girls in STEM 🥺

Extra Nuggets 👀

President of the Board 👩🏽‍💼 Janet Yang is new president of the Film Academy. She’s the first Asian person to hold the position, and the fourth woman.
Two strikes for Bey 🎳 Beyonce is righting some wrongs after using an “ableist slur” in her new song Heated. She also didn’t ask for Kelis’ permission to feature Milkshake in Energy.
Support Black businesses 💲 Black Business Month is here. Here’s some excellent Black woman owned businesses to support this month, and always.
Her Majesty, the Coloniser 🙊 ICYMI, Indigenous Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe referred to the colonising her majesty Queen Elizabeth in her oath of allegiance. We love a bit of sass!

Glowreel Recos

What we’re loving this week:

Read - Yasmine El Rashidi on how to Read Your Way Through Cairo. Spoiler alert: you’ll be adding more to your reading list, all in the name of wanderlust! ✈️

Listen - Thirst by Fijiana (aka Pallaví). Still listening to this on repeat! 🙌🏾

Eat - Sinfully Spicy’s Masala Macaroni. The Indian-Italian fusion you never knew you needed 🤤

A Chai-Versation To Listen To! 🍵

Stellar South Asian Women - Glowreel - Amplifying and celebrating women of colour; BIPOC women

Image Via: Chai Break Podcast

You know that happy feeling you have after a good chat over a cup of coffee with a friend? That’s exactly how you’ll feel after tuning in to the Chai Break Podcast with Shwetha & Rema.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Shwetha & Rema a couple of times. They interviewed me as the founder of Glowreel! You can tune in to the latest episode of Chai Break here. And, I interviewed them to learn more about their journey behind Chai Break, and what they hope to achieve with the podcast

Grab your cup of chai, and let’s go!

How did the idea for Chai Break come about?

Being an immigrant and dealing with visa issues, I (Shwetha) was going through a very difficult time in my career, where I wanted to move jobs but I couldn’t. While dealing with that, there came a point where it dawned on me that nothing’s stopping me from branching out. And that was when I sat down one day and jotted down 5 different ideas and went over to Rema’s apartment and over a couple of glasses of wine shared it with her. The podcast idea was the one that clicked and the rest, as they say, is history!

Who is Chai Break for?

Very good question. Chai Break started out as being a cathartic outlet for us, 2 brown women who never had avenues to express their real thoughts about the uncomfortable stuff, whether it was dealing with body issues, motherhood, self love and more. Soon after the podcast went live, the overwhelmingly positive responses we received from women across the globe about how much our conversations resonated with them; made us realize that Chai Break is for each of these women, everyday women like us, like you, who are questioning the norm, working on personal growth, doing a whole lot of unlearning and are overall just strong women.

What do you hope to achieve through your podcast?

The answer to this kind of spills over from the previous one. We’re in the midst of Season 2, interviewing South Asian women from all across the globe making a difference in their communities, you and Glowreel being one of them! As we started talking to these women, each chai-versation left us so energized and inspired, which led us to our vision for Chai Break, to create a community of like-minded women we call “Your Vibe, Your Tribe”. We have a lot of exciting things planned and at the core of it all is the question, “how do we add value to the lives of these amazing women, who each have so much to bring to the table”.

Highlights and challenges of starting Chai Break?

Highlights - most definitely the feedback we got from our community, which has been very encouraging and kept us going when we lacked motivation.

Another big one is our amazing sound editor, Felipe, without whom our podcast wouldn’t sound anything like it does. He is of course amazing at his job but also very patient!

Challenges - the biggest challenge or rather a learning curve was with the technicalities of podcasting! We went through some frustrating moments early on, having to re-record entire episodes!

At the moment, we are working on learning the ropes around how to grow our listeners, which is a whole new world to us!

But working through these challenges has been a rewarding experience.

What are your top tips for BIPOC women who are wanting to blaze their own trail?

Don’t let circumstances stop you from dreaming, dream it and go for it despite that.
Utilize social media in ways that enrich your life, detox your feed to match your mindset and your goals.
Make mindfulness and manifestation a daily practice, it will help keep you grounded, centered and give you the strength to go over bumps in the road with grace.

One Lioness To Another

“Our melanin will always make us marvellous... Just imagine what that sea of sisterhood would look like. Magic!”

-Alexandra Elle

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This week's email was brought to you by Shilpa Bhim, founder of Glowreel. You can see more of her work at www.shilpabhim.com or follow her on Instagram @shilpa.bhim