LONDON: A new podcast that aims to destigmatize the subject of mental health in the UK’s Muslim community will explore topics that are rarely talked about and often overlooked, its hosts say.
The podcast, launching this week, will be released by UK-based mental health and bereavement charity Supporting Humanity on the 25th of every month.
It is hosted by three Muslim mothers who specialize in mental health and emotional support.
“There’s plenty of podcasts out there, but I think there’s a lack of podcasts that are quite focused on the Muslim community, and in particular, focusing on things that are not really spoken about,” Tahreem Noor, a host and head of operations and communications at Supporting Humanity, told Arab News.
The podcast, entitled the “Unspoken Truths about Mental Health,” will feature a range of guests, including people who have experienced mental health issues, as well as emotional support volunteers, imams, counselors and therapists.
The hosts and guests will advise listeners on how to get help, and offer practical tips by combining mental health and spiritual advice.
Noor, 37, said that a lot of existing podcasts only touch on “safe topics” — something that the three hosts hope to avoid.
“What we really want to do with the Supporting Humanity podcast is talk about the truths that are not spoken about, because we’re too scared of opening up that can of worms as we don’t really know where it’s going to take us,” Noor said.
The launch episode, which releases on Friday, will introduce the three hosts and the charity, which was set up at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. From there, the trio will discuss what listeners can expect in the coming episodes, including issues Supporting Humanity has noticed in the past two years that are important to the UK Muslim community.
Noor, a mother of two originally from Pakistan, said that she had experienced mental health issues herself, and had been “very ignorant” and “neglectful” of the subject due to her upbringing in an Asian Muslim household and community.
“Growing up, I always referred to myself as emotionally strong and I think that was wrong, because I conditioned myself to believe that I was emotionally strong. The fact was, I was just hiding my emotions and not talking about them,” she said.
Initially, the three hosts will complete a series on bereavement aimed at those who have lost family members and friends due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Supporting Humanity will release episodes highlighting strategies on dealing with the loss of loved ones, and how to deal with grief as an individual within a marriage and in a family.
An episode to be released before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan will provide people with a platform to talk about the difficulties they have experienced with loss and how the fasting month used to be marked.
British Bangladeshi mother-of-two Rebecca Kibria, the lead podcaster, said the main message she is trying to get out is that mental health issues exist and people “do not need to suffer in silence.”
Kibria and Nour are joined by 34-year-old mother-of-two Tayiba Syed, a British Pakistani.
Kibria said the trio will also address the issue of domestic abuse, moving beyond a focus on physical violence.
Other episodes will explore different types of addictions, from alcohol, drugs, gambling and sex, and the effect they have on children or marriages, she added.
Kibria, 27, a psychology graduate, said that Supporting Humanity wants to make the podcast as “diverse and wide ranging as possible.
“We want to talk about all the different topics. For example, when it’s Black History Month, we want to bring on a Black Muslim who could talk about the struggles they’ve had, because they’ve experienced racism as well, from within the community,” Kibria added.
“The things we want to talk about might make people uncomfortable. But the only way we’re going to destigmatize them is by talking about it.”
UK Muslim podcast to shine light on ‘unspoken’ mental health issues
https://arab.news/6vryp
UK Muslim podcast to shine light on ‘unspoken’ mental health issues
- It is hosted by three Muslim mothers who specialize in mental health and emotional support
- The podcast will advise listeners on how to get help, and offer practical tips by combining mental health and spiritual advice
To infinity and beyond: Grendizer’s 50 years of inspiring Arabs
- 50 years after its creation, the Grendizer anime series continues to capture Arab imagination
- Arab News Japan speaks to creator Go Nagai, Middle Eastern fans and retells the story behind the UFO Robot tasked with protecting our planet
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
