Lighthouse

The past few weeks have seen amazing goings on in Belarus. In the wake a clearly rigged election, people took to the streets - and when demonstrators and bystanders alike were detained, beaten and tortured, it prompted a fresh wave of protests, bringing hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets, in the first serious challenge to president Lukashenko’s dictatorship since he came to power 26 years ago. But the detentions and human rights violations continue.

Wandering down Leith Walk recently I witnessed a small, simple act of kindness, someone offering a stranger a helping hand. It put a smile on my face, and my partner piped up ‘that person shops at Lighthouse’.

Candice Brathwaite is the founder of Make Motherhood Diverse – a platform that’s challenging the stereotypical narrative of motherhood. She’s also a presenter and a writer and her book, I Am Not Your Baby Mother, is out this week! The book - part memoir, part manifesto - is a powerful challenge to narrow mainstream depictions of motherhood and a call to mums like her to take control, scrapping the parenting rulebook to mother their own way. From black British mothers who may feel unseen and overlooked to those who need to challenge their ideas about what the term ‘mother’ means to them, this is a book that will undoubtedly change the way we talk about motherhood in the UK.