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Episode details

Radio 4,20 Apr 2026,13 mins

Reminiscence recordings

Café Hope

Available for over a year

The founder of charity Stories for Life, Barbara Altounyan, tells Rachel Burden how she recorded her father's life story when he was at end of life. Seeing how much he benefitted from it, she wanted to help others record their stories as well. The team of biographers now record end of life patients wherever they're being cared for. Café Hope is our virtual Radio 4 coffee shop, where guests pop in for a brew and a chat to tell us what they're doing to make things better in big and small ways. Think of us as sitting in your local café , cooking up plans, hearing the gossip, and celebrating the people making the world a better place. We're all about trying to make change. It might be a transformational project that helps an entire community, or it might be about trying to make one life a little bit easier. And the key here is in the trying. This is real life. Not everything works, and there are struggles along the way. But it's always worth a go. You can contact us on cafehope@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Rachel Burden Series Producer: Uma Doraiswamy Sound Design: Nicky Edwards Editor: Tom Bigwood

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