Only Human

What would you do if everything you knew was crumbling down around you? In this first episode of RNZ Podcast, Only Human, find out about an invisible disability that took musician Penni Bousfield on a path to re-learn everything she had ever known.

"I was frantically running down to the river and digging trenches…" says Lucie Levesque who was stuck in the remote wilderness in north central British Columbia when an underground fire began surrounding her wooden cabin and no one was there to rescue her.

In this episode of Only Human we meet Antonia, formerly Anthony John Pearce. As a young man, Anthony was a handsome singer-songwriter who had no shortage of female attention. Except one day everything changed.

A young Rangi Pou was on the cusp of adolescence when his father said it was time he become a man and fend for himself. For Pou, that meant growing up on the streets, getting involved in the world of drugs, gang life and eventually prison. The question is, how does he find his way out and what does it take to get there?

Today, social media has bridged the gap between distance and human connections, but at what cost? We meet a photographer-turned-influencer whose every waking moment comes with mounting pressure and anxiety driven by pressure from brands and the number of likes on her instagram feed.

A young woman uncovers a dark family secret, while facing an invisible battle with depression and the fight to come out the other end.

Leaving behind everything he'd ever known to help people struggling in his community wasn't something Abubakar (Abs) expected to do in his early twenties. But when war broke out in his hometown he had no other choice.