Volunteering for Freedom
Life Changing
BBC
4.6 • 804 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As a young man, Mohammed, AKA MFA Zaman, arrived in Britain from Bangladesh with a working visa, a patron and a job lined up as a chef. On arrival though, the promises of a bright future turned to ashes when he became a victim of modern slavery. But at this lowest of low ebbs in his life, Mohammed decided that he needed to do something - and that something was to volunteer at an old people's community club in Lewisham, near where he was living.
Mohammed tells Dr Sian Williams how this life-changing decision helped him to find freedom.
Producer: Tom Alban
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Eleven climbers appeared to have died on the world's second highest mountain K2. |
| 0:06.0 | It was one of the deadliest days in mountaineering history. |
| 0:10.0 | Rock falls, avalanches. |
| 0:11.0 | Huge pieces of ice. All are big enough to kill you. |
| 0:14.0 | He just flew out into Devoid and he was gone. |
| 0:17.0 | How did it all go so wrong? |
| 0:19.0 | And is it really worth risking death to feel alive? Why would |
| 0:23.2 | somebody pay to go to a place called the death cell on a vacation? Extreme, peak danger. With me, |
| 0:29.9 | Natalia Melman Petrazella. Listen to the full series now. First on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:40.0 | You're about to listen to the latest series of Life-changing. |
| 0:44.0 | Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcasts, |
| 0:47.7 | but if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:54.3 | Today, a young lad, alone and far from home, with dreams of starting life in a new country |
| 1:00.2 | where he'd be welcomed with open arms, but where the reality was harsh, punishing and exploitative. |
| 1:08.1 | But what Mohamed Zaman chose to do at a moment when his freedom and his future had been taken from him |
| 1:14.3 | was brave and perhaps counterintuitive. |
| 1:17.8 | Yet the joy that came from that action continues to echo. |
| 1:22.4 | And he's with me now. |
| 1:23.3 | Hello, Mohammed. |
| 1:24.3 | Hi. |
| 1:24.6 | How are you? |
| 1:25.2 | I'm excellent. Thank you. It's good to see you. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.