August is usually a quieter month. The pace slows a little. People step back from their screens.
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.
Interview with Anushka Chaudhry, Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgeon
There are some conversations that feel urgent the moment they begin.
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.
Interview with Dr Farah Ahmed
There is a moment that Dr Farah Ahmed describes, almost in passing, but it stays with you.
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:
The First Voices of Thrive ✨
There are some announcements you make quietly, and there are some you can barely contain.
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.
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.
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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