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Episode details

World Service,10 Jan 2022,40 mins

The factory worker who became Chile's first blind senator

Outlook

Available for over a year

In 2019, Fabiola Campillai was working in a factory where her husband Marco worked as a lorry driver. They were leading a quiet life in Santiago raising their children when a tear gas cannister changed the course of Fabiola’s life. The cannister, fired by a police officer, left her permanently blinded with multiple life-changing injuries. After spending months in hospital, Fabiola came out fighting. She had no political background, but helped by Marco, she decided to stand for election as a Senator, and won. When Elise Wortley was in her 20s, her life was put on hold by severe anxiety. So, she turned to the travelogues of Alexandra David-Néel, the pioneering explorer who was the first European woman to trek to Tibet in 1924. It inspired Elise to recreate the same trip using equipment that only would have been available in the 1920s – including a yak wool coat and a wooden backpack fashioned out of a chair. Since then, Elise has been bringing to life the lost histories of other female adventurers. Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com Presenter: Emily Webb (Photo: Fabiola Campillai with her husband Marco. Credit: Chile Today/Boris van der Spek)

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