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