Photo of Kauthar at East to Elsewhere by Salam Jones (2025)

Our third East spotlight is on secondary school teacher, mum and storyteller Kauthar Abdi. Tasnim Siddiqa Amin had a chat with Kauthar about her rich Somali cultural heritage and what she’s learned from her engagement with the East Storytelling Project, from her first workshop with us in 2021 through to her first paid performance last November at A Season of Bangla Drama festival 2025. 

Listen to the interview here.

Tell us about yourself

My name is Kauthar, a secondary school teacher. I’m a mum. I was about 20 years old when I experienced Islamophobia, and that made me go into a world I never imagined, which is becoming [a] really strict Muslim, wearing the veil and that took a while for me to come out of and, in a way, I needed to get out of the relationship I was in in order to get out of that. That’s been quite a journey, and coming out of that made me feel like I had stories to tell, and I’ve always felt like there’s stories I want to share. I grew up with oral storytelling, Somali folk tales, and that was my most wonderful memories as a child.

Have you got any specific memories of the kind of oral stories or the folk stories that you can share with us?