Here is a look back at everything we’ve brought into the light this month.

A Heartfelt Thank You: Community Generosity

We are endlessly grateful for the people who believe in our mission and keep this work moving forward. A huge, warm thank you to the lovely Punam Verma Saxena, who generously sent us our second £50 donation this month! Community support like this directly powers our ability to hold space, share vital health information, and build meaningful resources for us all.

Breaking Silences on Women’s Health

This month, we tackled crucial health topics that directly impact South Asian women, yet so often get brushed under the carpet:

• PCOS & Perimenopause: What South Asian Women Need to Know: We delved into the complex intersection of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and perimenopause, breaking down how hormone fluctuations uniquely affect our bodies and what steps we can take to advocate for our health.

• Five Cancers Every South Asian Woman Needs to Know About: Knowledge is power, protection, and early intervention. We highlighted five critical cancers affecting our community, shedding light on symptoms, cultural taboos, and the importance of screening early.

In Conversation: Expert Insights & Powerful Perspectives

Our expert interviews and essays continue to offer clinical clarity grounded in deep cultural understanding:

• Interview with Dr. Vikram Talaulikar: We were honoured to sit down with Dr. Vikram Talaulikar, Hon. Associate Professor in Women’s Health. He shared invaluable insights into midlife health, hormonal wellness, and how healthcare providers can better serve South Asian women.

• “The Baby Factory Is Closed: When Menopause Becomes Rebellion”: A fiery, refreshing essay examining how stepping out of reproductive years isn’t an ending; it’s an act of reclaiming our autonomy, our bodies, and our freedom + a Q&A with Deepa Mann-Kler.

MY SATTVA STORY & Community Voices

Our stories are our legacy. This month, we were privileged to share incredible personal journeys from within our community:

• MY SATTVA STORY: Zohrain Jetha: Zohrain shared her powerful narrative of resilience, identity, and finding her footing through midlife.

• Interview with Janisha Parmar: An inspiring conversation exploring personal growth, health advocacy, and what it truly means to navigate cultural expectations while staying true to oneself.

Expanding Our Horizon: Launch of the Ambassador Programme

We reached an exciting milestone this month with the official Launch of the Ambassador Programme! To ensure the Sattva message reaches every corner where it is needed, we are bringing together dedicated community voices to help lead, represent, and grow our mission. We can’t wait to introduce you to our ambassadors in the coming months!

Thank you to every single one of you, whether you donated, read an article, shared a post, or shared your story. We are building this together, step by step.

With love and gratitude,

Kiran & The Sattva Collective Team x

And yet, looking at what this month actually produced — two expert interviews, two Summit speaker announcements, a new venue confirmed, a London collaboration underway, our first community drop-in session imminent, and a website rebuilt — the word quiet doesn’t quite cover it.

Here is what August looked like for The Sattva Collective.

Two new expert interviews, and they are among the most important we have published

The biweekly interview series continued in August with two conversations that, between them, address some of the most urgent and underserved dimensions of South Asian women’s health in midlife.

Anushka Chaudhry is a Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgeon, one of a very small number of female breast surgeons in the UK, and the first female general surgeon appointed to Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is also the founder of Aurora Breast Cancer Wellbeing Charity, and she is passionate, with a particular, focused passion of someone who has spent years watching South Asian women arrive at her clinic with diagnoses that earlier intervention could have changed, about reaching the communities mainstream healthcare consistently fails to reach.

Her interview covers breast cancer screening barriers specific to South Asian women, the clinical truth about HRT and breast cancer risk, and the cultural silence around the body that causes so many women to arrive too late. It ends with a message that is both clinical and urgent: know your normal, and if something changes, get it checked. This conversation could save lives. We mean that without hyperbole.

Dr Farah Ahmed is a GP with a special interest in women’s health, working in a dedicated NHS menopause and women’s health clinic. She holds diplomas from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, is a certified member of the British Menopause Society, and has contributed to Vogue, Women’s Health, and Condé Nast, taking evidence-based medicine into the mainstream media where women actually are.

Her interview goes to the heart of something this organisation was founded precisely to address. Many South Asian women have not been absent from the healthcare system. They have sought help, repeatedly, for years. And still they have not received a diagnosis that connects their symptoms to perimenopause, not because the symptoms weren’t there, but because the system wasn’t designed to see them. Dr Farah names this directly, offers practical guidance for how South Asian women can advocate for themselves in a ten-minute GP appointment, and makes a structural argument that equitable care cannot be treated as an optional extra. It must be embedded into the design of services, education, research, and clinical practice from the outset.

Both interviews are freely available on our website and are written to serve multiple audiences simultaneously: the South Asian women who need this information, the healthcare professionals who need to understand these barriers, and the funders and commissioners who need evidence that this knowledge gap is real and that The Sattva Collective is actively closing it.

Dr Farah Ahmed and Nisha Harichandran confirmed as guest panellists at the Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit

Following her interview, we are delighted to confirm that Dr Farah Ahmed has joined the Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit as a guest panellist.

Nisha Harichandran draws on her South Asian cultural heritage, an 18-year international career, and happiness science to support women in redefining success on their own terms.

Both Dr Farah Ahmed and Nisha Harichandran join a panel and keynote line-up that now stands at five confirmed speakers: Sonia Shah (keynote), Sahir Ahmed-Evans (keynote), Janisha Parmar (keynote), Dr Farah Ahmed (guest panellist), and Dr Vikram Sinai Talaulikar (guest panellist).

Six voices. Six distinct areas of expertise: clinical pharmacology, women’s health advocacy, mental fitness and nervous system regulation, GP-led menopause care, and reproductive medicine. A programme that reflects the breadth and depth of what midlife actually demands of South Asian women.

The full announcement, including speaker biographies, is published here:

A new venue, and a significant one

The Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit has a new home.

The Summit will now take place at The Bridge, 73–81 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 0NQ, a venue that reflects the scale and ambition of what we are building and that positions the Summit in a city where South Asian women across the UK can reasonably travel to reach it.

This is a significant development. It marks the moment the Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit stepped from a Bedford community event into a national conversation. The date remains 14th May 2027, 5pm–9pm. Tickets and the full programme will be announced over the coming months. In the meantime, the Summit page holds everything you need to know.

Coming to London: Redefining Midlife & Menopause with The Bridge

The relationship with The Bridge extends beyond the Summit.

In November 2026, The Sattva Collective will be running Redefining Midlife & Menopause in collaboration with The Bridge in London. This is The Sattva Collective’s first facilitated programme outside Bedford, a pilot that opens the door to reaching South Asian women in one of the most diverse cities in the world, in a venue that is already home to community, connection, and purposeful work.

Full details here.

Our first community drop-in session: Bedford Central Library, 12th September

On Saturday 12th September, 2pm–4pm, The Sattva Collective will run its first 1-2-1 drop-in session at Bedford Central Library.

Thirty minutes. One South Asian woman at a time. No group setting. No pressure. Just space to talk about midlife and menopause, and something practical to leave with.

The Saturday timing is deliberate. It came directly from the women in our community, who told us clearly that weekday daytime sessions are inaccessible to them. Community feedback shapes how we programme. That principle matters, and it will continue to shape every decision we make about how, when, and where we show up.

This is a pilot. We are hoping to run these sessions weekly or biweekly going forward. Booking is via the Sattva Women’s Circle WhatsApp or by emailing hello@thesattvacollective.org.

For grant committees and funders reading this: the library drop-in represents The Sattva Collective’s first step into direct, in-person service delivery at a community venue; a form of outreach that digital platforms alone cannot replicate, and one that will generate evidence of need, engagement, and impact that strengthens future funding applications.

Our website has a new home and a new shape

August also brought a significant operational change.

The Sattva Collective’s original website and Substack publication have been merged into one unified platform, so that our community no longer needs to navigate between two separate places to find articles, interviews, podcast episodes, and updates. Everything is now in one place, more accessible, more coherent, and easier to share.

This is more than a technical change. It reflects an organisation that has grown to the point where its infrastructure needs to match its ambition. The website is the public face of The Sattva Collective for the community it serves, for the healthcare professionals and partner organisations it works with, and for the funders and grant committees assessing its reach and impact.

A cleaner, unified platform serves all of those audiences better.

What August tells us

In June, we launched. In July, we were recognised. In August, we expanded.

A new city. A new venue. A new community programme. A first drop-in session. A website rebuilt for the next stage of growth. And two of the most clinically significant interviews this organisation has published are conversations about breast cancer, menopause, and the healthcare barriers South Asian women face that are not incidental to TSC’s mission. They are the mission, made visible.

The Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit, which in May was a confirmed date and a venue in Bedford, is now a nationally located event with five confirmed speakers, a London-based partner organisation, and a community programme running alongside it in the months leading up to it.

This is what organisational momentum looks like from the inside. Not a single dramatic moment. The accumulation of decisions, each one small, each one in the right direction, adds up to something that is unmistakably growing.

The silence around South Asian women’s midlife experience is not gone. But the infrastructure being built to dismantle it is more substantial now than it has ever been.

That is what August looked like.

Support our work

The Sattva Collective CIC is a registered not-for-profit Community Interest Company. Every article, interview, podcast episode, drop-in session, and resource we produce is free and accessible to the community we serve. None of it is funded by advertising. All of it depends on the generosity of people who believe this work matters.

If our work has reached you or a South Asian woman in your life, please consider supporting us.

Support The Sattva Collective →

The Sattva Collective CIC is the UK’s first community-led initiative dedicated to supporting South Asian women through midlife and menopause. Registered Community Interest Company No. 16450670. www.thesattvacollective.org

With love,

Kiran x

Founder & Director, The Sattva Collective CIC

South Asian Heritage Month does that. It shifts something; quietly, but unmistakably. The conversations get a little braver. The stories get a little louder. And the work of this organisation, which can sometimes feel like swimming upstream, suddenly feels like it has a current behind it.

Here is what we built in it.

South Asian Heritage Month, and where TSC showed up

This month, we published Unity in Diversity: What South Asian Heritage Month Means for Women in Midlife, an essay about what this month actually holds for women who are navigating cultural identity and midlife change at the same time.

Not a celebration for its own sake, but a reflection with substance.

We were also proud to have the piece featured by the South Asian Heritage Month organisation itself at southasianheritage.org.uk, reaching an audience well beyond our own community, and planting TSC’s voice in a space that matters.

Two new expert interviews

The bi-weekly interview series continued in July with two conversations that, between them, cover a lot of ground.

Dr Shila Patel, M.D., brought the kind of clinical clarity that cuts through the noise. Her perspective on South Asian women’s health in midlife is both medically grounded and culturally informed, a combination that is rarer than it should be.

Dr Supatra Tovar, founder of ANEW, brought something equally important: a whole-person framework for how women approach health, identity, and reinvention in this season. Her work sits at the intersection of psychology and wellness, and the conversation reflects that.

Both interviews are on the website. Both are worth your time.

What self-care actually means

We published Not a Bubble Bath: What Self-Care Actually Means for South Asian Women in Midlife this month, because the word self-care has been so thoroughly hollowed out that it barely means anything anymore.

For South Asian women specifically, the barriers to genuine self-care are not just about time or money. They are cultural. They are relational. They are rooted in a lifetime of being told, in a hundred different ways, that your needs come last.

This piece tries to give that reality the honest treatment it deserves.

The podcast: Episode 2 is live

Episode 2: The Exhausted Woman Myth - Why You’re Running on Empty in Midlife is now live.

The exhaustion that so many women in midlife describe is not weakness. It is not a character flaw. It is the entirely predictable result of decades of invisible labour, hormonal change, and a culture that has never adequately named either of those things.

This episode names them.

You can listen below or on Spotify. And if it sounds like someone you know, please send it to them.

The Summit: two more keynote speakers confirmed

This is the news I have been waiting to share.

Sahir Ahmed-Evans and Janisha Parmar have both confirmed as keynote speakers for the Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit on 14th May 2027.

They join Sonia Shah and Dr Vikram Sinai Talaulikar, confirmed in June. Four speakers. A stage that is beginning to look exactly like the room I imagined when this Summit was still just a date in a notebook.

There is more to come. Full details, including how to secure your place, are on the Summit page.

If 14th May 2027 is already in your diary: good. Keep it there.

Support our work

The Sattva Collective is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. Everything we create is free, and freely given. If our work has meant something to you this month, or to a South Asian woman you love, please consider supporting us.

Support The Sattva Collective →

August is a quiet month for us; I’ll be out of the country, and the pace will reflect that. But September brings a return to full momentum, and there is a great deal already in motion.

Thank you for being here. For reading. For sharing. For being part of what this is becoming.

With love and Sattva,

Kiran x

Founder & Director, The Sattva Collective CIC

thesattvacollective.org

New voices. New platforms. A community campaign that, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure would land the way I hoped. And the quiet, determined work that happens away from the screen, in GP surgeries, local businesses, and email inboxes, that rarely gets documented but matters just as much.

Here is what June looked like for The Sattva Collective.

We launched My Sattva Story, and women started sharing

This was the thing I had been building towards for months, and the thing I was most nervous about.

My Sattva Story is a year-round storytelling campaign inviting South Asian women to share their midlife and menopause experiences in their own words. No clinical language. No performance. Just truth, told at their own pace, on their own terms.

The first story published was my own. I wrote it because I couldn’t ask women to be vulnerable in a space I hadn’t been willing to enter myself. You can read it here: My Sattva Story: Kiran Singh.

And then Rubina Chadha shared hers. Read Rubina’s story here.

Two stories. Two women. Two different experiences of the same silence.

If you have a story or know a woman who does, the door is open. We want to hear it.

The podcast is live

Two episodes of The Sattva Collective Podcast are now live on Spotify. Solo episodes for now, and honestly, I have found them unexpectedly grounding to record. There is something different about speaking out loud the things I usually write. It enters the body differently.

Expert guests join from Autumn 2026. Until then, these early episodes are where I think alongside you.

We published two new expert interviews

In June, we published conversations with two remarkable women.

• Darpan Bhasin brought a perspective I know will resonate with so many women reading this: the intersection of identity, culture, and midlife that rarely gets space in mainstream conversations.

• Mangala Rao-D’Sa was generous and frank in a way that stayed with me long after the edit was done.

Both interviews are on the website. Both are worth your time.

We wrote about invisible carers

Carers Week came and went in June, and I could not let it pass without naming what I see in the women who come to this space.

South Asian women in midlife are often carrying caring responsibilities, for elderly parents, for children, sometimes for both at once, and doing it largely without acknowledgement. The article, "The Invisible Carer: What Carers Week Means for South Asian Women in Midlife," seeks to give that experience the language it deserves.

We made our website available in multiple languages

This was something Khushi and I had been thinking about for a while, and in June, we did it.

For a community where English is not always a first language, where a woman’s mother or auntie might be searching for answers in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, or Gujarati, accessibility is not optional. It is part of the mission.

We wrote about why we did it here.

Our book is releasing next year!

Good Girls Don’t Talk About This. Until Now is the book I have been circling for some time. You will know the phrase. Many of us were raised inside it. This book will be about what happens when good girls finally decide to speak.

New resources: GP Pack and Resource Hub

In June, we made two new resources available on the website.

1. The GP Healthcare Professional Pack is designed for GPs, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who want to better understand the specific experiences of South Asian women navigating midlife and menopause. We want the conversations happening in consulting rooms to be more informed, more culturally aware, and more useful.

2. The Resource Hub brings together trusted information in one place, because no woman should have to search too hard to find support.

Both are free. Both are for sharing.

Outreach work, going beyond the screen

One of the things that rarely makes it into a newsletter is the work that happens offline.

In June, we continued building relationships with local businesses in Bedford because the community does not live only online, and the women we want to reach are not always the ones already following us. This work is slow. It is unglamorous. And it matters enormously.

A community cause worth supporting this July

As we move into July, I want to share something from Nisha Harichandran, a woman whose work I have been following and whose voice I believe our community needs to hear more of.

Nisha is fundraising for the British Heart Foundation in celebration of South Asian Heritage Month. The reason this matters: South Asians are at a significantly higher risk of coronary heart disease than the general population, and funding research that addresses this specifically is something our community has a real stake in.

In exchange for any donation, Nisha is offering a one-hour coaching or mentoring session; leadership, mindset, joy, clarity, whatever you need. It is a generous offer from someone who clearly understands the value of giving time as well as money.

If this speaks to you, please donate and share it widely.

Support Nisha’s fundraiser for the British Heart Foundation →

The Summit is taking shape

In May, I told you something was coming. Now I can tell you more. The Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit takes place on 14th May 2027, 5 pm – 9 pm, at The Centenary Hall, Bedford.

And our first two confirmed speakers are:

• Sonia Shah of Avenir Clinics, our first confirmed keynote speaker, brings clinical expertise and a genuine understanding of the women we serve.

• Dr Vikram Sinai Talaulikar, confirmed guest panellist, is a leading voice in reproductive and menopausal medicine.

This is just the beginning of the line-up. More announcements are coming. If you know you want to be in that room on 14th May 2027, save the date now.

Support our work

The Sattva Collective is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. Everything we create, every article, interview, story, resource, and podcast episode, is free and accessible to the community we serve.

If our work has meant something to you, or to a woman you love, please consider supporting us.

Support The Sattva Collective →

June has been full. Not in the breathless, anxious way that full sometimes feels. Full in the way of a table at the end of a long meal, warm, satisfying, with more still to come.

Thank you for being here. For reading. For sharing. For being part of what this is becoming.

With love and Sattva,

Kiran x

Founder & Director The Sattva Collective CIC thesattvacollective.org

A movement. Quiet, determined, and growing.

Here is what May looked like for The Sattva Collective.

We turned one!

On 14th May 2026, The Sattva Collective CIC celebrated its first anniversary. One year since the website went live. One year since the first article was published. One year since a South Asian woman decided that the silence around midlife and menopause in our community had gone on long enough, and built something to break it.

In twelve months, over 60 articles have been published. An interview series featuring extraordinary voices. Monthly Sattva Women’s Circle gatherings. National media coverage across eight outlets. And a community of South Asian women who write to us to say, for the first time, that they no longer feel alone.

My daughter Khushi, our Co-Director, has been part of every step of this. Building this with her is the most meaningful thing I have done in my professional life. This is our legacy. And it is just beginning.

We founded Sattva Day!

Also on 14th May, because the date deserved more than one milestone, we announced the founding of Sattva Day: South Asian Women’s Midlife Awareness Day.

Observed every 14th May, Sattva Day is the UK’s first annual awareness day dedicated entirely to South Asian women navigating midlife and menopause. We have submitted it for listing on national and international awareness day calendars. The page is live. The hashtag, #SattvaDay, is in the world.

This day belongs to our community. And it will grow, year on year, into something that reaches the women who don’t yet know it exists.

We interviewed Mr Menopause

One of the most powerful conversations we have published this year landed in May.

Tafiq Akhir, known widely as Mr Menopause, is a man who has spent over 25 years championing menopause education, driven by the memory of watching his mother stand at an open window in a snowstorm, silently suffering through what no one had explained to her.

His interview covers the cultural silence South Asian women face, what happens when a woman finally gets an explanation for what her body has been doing, and what he wants South Asian men to understand about the women in their lives.

It is a remarkable conversation. I am grateful he shared it with us.

Read the interview →

Our Website and Substack had a full update

In May, we completed a comprehensive rewrite of every page on the TSC website, from the homepage to the directory, bringing everything in line with where the organisation is now, rather than where it was when we launched. The copy is sharper, the story is clearer, and the site finally reflects the full year of work behind it.

The Substack has a new description, a pinned Start Here post, and a growing archive that goes deeper every month.

If you haven’t visited the site recently, it is worth a look.

Explore the updated website → | Read the Substack →

We launched a LinkedIn Community

The Sattva Collective now has a LinkedIn group: a space for South Asian women, healthcare professionals, coaches, advocates, and allies who want to be part of this conversation.

If you are on LinkedIn and this work matters to you, we would love to have you with us.

Join the group →

And one more thing, coming in June.

Next month, we are launching something new. A year-round storytelling campaign, My Sattva Story, inviting South Asian women to share their midlife and menopause experiences, in their own words, at their own pace.

Because your story is the one that reaches the woman who doesn’t yet know she isn’t alone.

More details coming on 1st June. Watch this space.

Support our work

The Sattva Collective is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. Everything we create is free and accessible to the community we serve. If our work has meant something to you, or to a woman you love, please consider supporting us.

Every contribution, at any level, goes directly into sustaining and expanding what we do.

Support The Sattva Collective →

Thank you for being here. For reading. For sharing. For being part of a community that is quietly, determinedly changing what midlife looks and feels like for South Asian women.

With love and Sattva,

Kiran x

Founder & Director

The Sattva Collective CIC thesattvacollective.org