woo—hoe! yeah! joyous laughter this is kind of like my really in—your—face way of saying if i can swim the channel, you can go to your local pool. but really, ultimately, my other thing is to show my son that his birth didn't ruin my life. oh, my god... this was the moment she'd been working towards for years. in 2023, gill castle became the first person with a stoma to swim the channel. have you got a message for sam? it was all for you, gorgeous boy. and just two months later, she was in kenya, helping women with the same condition but hardly any support to learn to live with their stomas. i was, "gosh, with a colostomy bag, swimming, enjoying life?" i said, "yes, i can." i've learnt to be confident,

not to have any shame. i i can do anything. cheering gill castle was so severely injured in childbirth in october 2011 that she had to have a colostomy operation. she'd suffered a fistula — a hole between her rectum and hervagina — and a fourth degree tear which couldn't be repaired. so she had to have her bowel diverted out onto her abdomen, creating a permanent stoma.

knowing how hard it was to come to terms with this massive life change, she wanted to let others see it couldn't stop herfrom doing anything. when i first had my stoma surgery, i was told, "no, you can't do that" to a lot of things. but my attitude is, "well, why not?" nothing ventured, nothing gained. i don't want to dwell all the time on what happened in the past. i also want to show people what's possible moving forward. screams morning, everybody! here we are at ben nevis. and that's really important, to give people hope, i think. good morning, happy campers! and throughout the winter of 2020, gill did just that, taking on her bikini challenge

— swimming in open water three times a week and streaming it online. welcome, everybody! this is the start of my bikini challenge. everyone should do this. it is so good for your mental health. it's just amazing. i mean, come on, man — who doesn't want to do this?! it was then that she was contacted by the head of an american charity called beyond fistula, which helps kenyan women who, like gill, have had fistula surgery, many of whom end up with a stoma. i am pulling it. they're cringing! see? chuckles. i don't care! i realised during the course of that conversation they don't have stoma bags and the ones that do have are very poor quality, so i said, "oh! "well, we have lots of surplus in the uk that can't be given "back to the hospital." they can't go anywhere other than landfill. so, ifundraised. it's absolutely insane to me to think that two years ago i was in my little garage in alnwick, in northumberland,

on my own, surrounded by donated stoma boxes, packing them off and sending them to this hospital in kenya, to these women i've never met. you know, it'sjust sort of gone boomph! and now, you have a charity. gill's channel swim raised funds for her charity chameleon buddies, which supports people with stomas in the uk and in kenya. gill chose the chameleon as it's adaptable — much like the people she wants to help. around 13.5 million people worldwide are thought to live with a stoma, an often hidden condition which sometimes leads to embarrassment and shame. and in kenya, women fear being ostracised by their communities. the chameleon buddies came to the gynocare hospital in eldoret, in the west of kenya, for a week to hand over supplies of bags, help the women learn to manage their stomas and to support each other.

but the connection with gill went even deeper. i sort of wanted to point out to them why i thought they were special. and i thought they were so special, i was prepared to swim to another country. so, i sort of shared my channel swim with them, and we've had a video up, yeah, and they, all of a sudden, theyjust stood up and started clapping and they were crying. they were so emotional. the power in that moment, you know, i thought my heart was going to burst. you'rejust, like, enveloped by love, aren't you? and, erm... well, it will stay with me forever. i never cry. when i was swimming the channel and i was doing all of this training, i kept saying and i kept thinking about these women. but then, to actually be there in person and to see what that has meant to them, well, it means the world.

hello! many of the women make long journeys to the workshop, like pastoress rose... welcome! thank you! ..who's now become part of the chameleon buddies team. how is england? cold? laughter an attendee at the first workshop in 2022, this year, she's translating... translates ..and will carry on with outreach work once gill has gone home. she knows all too well the fear felt by the women, having had a colostomy in 2020. it was so sad. it was so fearful. something i had never seen. i wanted to run away. i never accepted it easily. for the first three

months, it was hectic. i don't know how to put it on. i don't want to see even the wound. i didn't even want to look at myself and see where the wound is. and i had nobody to open to, apart from my last—born daughter. she's very courageous. so, she's the one who could come and put the stoma at the wound. but when she went back to the college, i really had it rough. i could use even four stomas. that costed me almost 4,000 every day. the high cost of the bags is also a hurdle for the women, many spending up to 1,000 shillings on a single bag. that's the equivalent of about £5. the average salary for an educated person in kenya is 25,000 shillings per month, meaning the entire salary could be spent on bags — if you can find them. we will learn about colostomy. translates

we will learn about skin. translates gill made her first trip to the hospital in 2022, so some of the faces are familiar to her — like mary, who has a urostomy, which diverts urine out through a stoma on the abdomen. previously, mary was just wearing bits of cloth or whatever on her stoma to try and absorb... and it's a constant source of urine that's coming out. i mean, it's even worse than being incontinent in your underwear because at least, you can kind of put pads in that might be held there. mary, actually, she lives very far away from here. she had run out of supplies and she was wearing a sort of a seal on a tatty old string with a plastic bag attached — just a normal plastic bag. and that was her stoma bag. we've given her quite a few months' supply and now, the hospital are aware that she might run out a bit quicker than others. british artist tracey emin has the same kind of stoma as mary

and sends her spare bags to her. mary epitomises the need for the charity's work. and thatjust kind of reminds you why this all started in the first place, because that is what they were wearing — plastic bags, bits of cloth, wrappers from bread. sesita is from the maasai mara. she gave birth in 2022. her baby died and she was left with such terrible internal injuries, she had to have two stomas. sesita, like many young women from poor rural areas, is uneducated.

she speaks mainly a tribal language and her swahili is limited but her distress at what has happened to her is clear. it is hard to comprehend the trauma she's experienced but sesita told us she wanted to speak so that others can understand the help needed here. when you hear really heartbreaking stories like sesita, how do you balance out that trauma with the joy, really? that is very difficult because, of course, culturally, life is very different here as well. what we've got to focus on is we are making her life better. we're enabling her to move on from that trauma. i met her last year, just after her stoma surgery. she was on the ward. she was lying in bed, she had her sister there, translating, and i went in and said to her, "i've got a stoma, just like you."

and i lifted up my shirt and i showed her my stoma and her whole face — she was like... gasps. and she was saying to the women in the ward, "just like me! "just like me!" and they were going like this. and i was, like, sort of parading myself around, going, "yeah, just like her!" it was purejoy in herface. it was amazing. and now, she's come back this year. life is moving on positively, and that's always been the goal. sesita has now been returned to herfamily and is due to start training next year to learn to be a seamstress. so, we do get actually some bananas from here. our patients get a little bit of that also. and we want to continue planting until the other side, so that we have enough supply of bananas. the gynocare hospital was set up by dr hillary mabeya

and his wife carolyne specifically to treat fistulas. they run theirfarm, around an hour outside of eldoret, to provide the patients with fresh food and milk to ensure they get the right nutrition. fistulas often affect the poorest women who can't access health care, so the operations are offered here for free. dr mabeya is one of only around ten surgeons in the whole of kenya who operates on fistulas. the operation is not paying because the patient cannot pay you. and i think there is a stigma from the doctor that the condition is difficult to treat, so there's a myriad of reasons why this condition has been left out. women who suffer from obstetric fistula, they lead a very miserable life. but when they come to gynocare, they get this life—saving surgery. grace suffered a fistula in childbirth, then later

discovered she had colon cancer. the 37—year—old travelled for more than four hours on public transport from kisumu county to meet gill. she was in considerable pain, having only had her colostomy operation one week before, but that's how important this is to her. do women in kenya feel embarrassed about fistula, about stoma ? women are very, very embarrassed, yeah. and then, we don't come out to talk about it. with me, i stayed with the fistula for four years and i did not talk to anybody. why don't you talk about it? hmm... 0k, we fear that if you talk about it, some will laugh, some will hate, some will run. so, hi, grace. my name is claire. i'm one of the stoma nurses from the uk and i'm here to see if we can help you and support you with your stoma care.

throughout the week, stoma nurse claire from whitley bay has been running a clinic, offering much—needed advice to the women. she also trained the nursing staff and helped to sort out the vast supplies of donated stoma bags. so, what are the main differences that you've seen in the women here, compared to what you see in the uk? i think it was the lack of support and care that they had, right from the whole of theirjourney. some of them can't afford to get to the hospital. they struggle to get here from a distance. they don't have the follow—up like we do in the uk. but then, once they're discharged, then that's it. they're left to their own devices, which is where their problems maybe start or their isolation starts or their stigma starts or their fear about living with a stoma, that they then become detached from their family or their group of friends. and they didn't really understand, a lot of the women, how to look after themselves. is that right? no, they very much were taught a basic technique ofjust stick the bag on. they didn't understand

what the bag could do. hi. hello. you all right? yes. i need your help. 0k. these bags, here. yeah. i'm not sure which... ..what this is, compared to that one. mm—hm. you've also been instrumental in sorting out all of the supplies. is it comforting to know that they've got access to all of that now? it's phenomenal, what we've been able to bring over. - i got quite frustrated and a little bit angryl with the amount of wastage we have in the uk. - keep going. you're doing great. see you in a bit. bye. 20—year—old abigail has an ileostomy, where the small intestine is brought out onto the abdomen. she struggled to manage life with a stoma bag. we've experienced the worst. we can handle anything. what difference has it made seeing claire, the stoma nurse? i used to sleep with one side

because of the leakage, but once i... ..had a talk with claire, everything became perfect. yesterday, i slept with the both sides. definitely not one for the stairs. - no. haven't quite got the cornering right. oh, good. this is a good'un. stacked full. the women brought enough unwanted bags of all shapes and sizes from the uk to last almost three years. 0h! oh, my god! it took charlotte most of the week to organise and stack them in a brand—new storeroom. oh, my god, charlotte! this brings me so muchjoy, knowing that the nurses - downstairs, they're just i going to go into that room and they're going to go, "0k,| we need this and we need this for this woman." claire's documented what eachl person needs, the exact things.

and they'll be able to come up, open the box, "yep. _ this one. "we need this powder. we need this belt." and on their way they go. a lot better system - than the bags and boxes just heaped together. not everyone can make it to eldoret. so gill and her team made the long journey to siaya county to meet symprose and offer her care at home. and the issue that this lady has is one of acceptance, essentially. so she cannot accept her stoma. she can't accept that she needs one. the fact that she's always going to have to have one. gill first met symprose, who's in her 70s, at the hospital just over a year before. lovely to meet you. come. hi. how are you?

i remember last time i saw you, you were going to buy trousers. did you buy trousers? no. no? 0h. claire is a nurse and she specialises in colostomies. so she will be able to help you. when we met gill and the others, that's when i realised i'm not alone. that is when i got the courage, and said, "it's not me alone." there are also other people suffering like me. yeah. she told us she's a swimmer. and i was wondering how she does it with this. because i fear going to places and even today, sometimes i don't go to places. yeah, because when you want to remove and replace, where do you do it? i need somewhere where there is

water, there is a comfortable toilet, where i can remove, flush and it goes. yeah. and is that difficult to find in kenya? very difficult to find outside. i'll take you for a walk. 0k. everybody's following me. 0k. and it's notjust the facilities that are hard to find. when we got gill on board i and she was able to help us, help our women, by collecting bags and sending them over, i for us, it was like - a breakthrough for these patients. because at some point we were struggling, i because before they go through the surgery, i somebody has to give them the information| that is required. and sometimes you just don't know how to tell this patient, | "this surgery is going - to happen "but we don't know where you're going to get the bags." l yes.

and we even had some young girls who are going to schooll and they would come . home from school crying because their bags spilled i and you have now no other bag to replace. now, can we go? laughter with travel difficult for symprose, claire was able to give her a check—up and advice at home. hello. that went really, really well. really well. lots of education, lots . of advice, lots of support and lots of understanding what her problems are i and her issues are. but it went really, really well. - i think we've managed to make her start looking forward instead of back all the time. dr mabeya told me that he's had a phone call with her and she says she's not going to keep pushing to have

it reversed now. does that feel like a big win for you? that's a massive win because i know once people have accepted it, they'll embrace it. and she willjust keep moving forward now. thank you. my pleasure. you will be given... ...0ne of these, which is the template. gill, along with nicola, ran a series of workshops which included teaching the women how to make their own sanitary products, not just for personal use, but so they can sell them to keep their independence. many of the women have been unable to work due to their condition and a lack of the correct supplies or education about how to manage it. but the group has also been taught about peer support. in that room over thisi last week we've talked about everything from bowelj movements to relationships. and honestly, those ladies

and girls that have been. in our sessions over this last week, i firmly believe that l they're going to go back to their communities. and their villages with - a little bit more confidence. so it's all about women supporting women, basically. yeah, that's what it's all about. i don't want to come here and show these women that there's hope for life with a stoma. i want them to show each other. i want the women to run the support groups. they don't need me to do that for them. there have been a number of success stories for gill. she first met meti online in 2021. meti was too afraid to even wash herself back then because of her stoma. but two years later, she's come to the support group with her very own baby, joy blessing. and just to see the sort of self—confidence that meti has now. and she's created new life. she wouldn't have had that kind of intimate relationship beforehand. i mean, last year in particular, it was actually quite funny when the question said, "can we have sex

with a stoma?" and i was like, "well, yeah." they literally went, "hallelujah!" you know? like, there was a massive cheer, and they were all clapping and cheering and, erm... sexual relationships, intimate relationships are a huge part of people's lives, especially in this kenyan culture. and tapping into the culture here to help the women to help themselves was what this week has been all about. so gill has coined the phrase. "no secrecy, no shame." and it translates toi "bila siri, bila aibu." very good. and the ladies this week have just absolutely ran with it. - i'm going to create more awareness and i'm going to tell them that this thing is for anybody. i've met gill from england who has colostomy, and her life is normal. applause

i have to talk. i'm going to talk about it. for other women to know they have to live a normal life like any other woman. i feel my future will be bright. yeah. what's changed for you this week? i've learned to be confident, not to have any shame, - that i can bathe. i can be the same like my friends. l i can do swimming. i can ride a bicycle. i can do anything. when i came and i heard the story of gill, it really changed my life. it changed my mind. i started enjoying life. i became happy. bila siri, bila aibu. make somebody else to heal. cheering at the end of the week,

the women celebrated graduating from the course. but this is by no means the end of the work for the chameleon buddies. so where do you see the future for the charity now? next year, we're going to bring four stoma nurses with us, hopefully a continence nurse. eventually, what i would really like to do is fund an actual stoma nurse here at the hospital. we want one of the nurses here to train up to be a stoma nurse specialist. that's ultimately what we would like. and so we don't need our nurses coming over. that's, like, my ultimate dream. and it's going to happen. it's definitely going to happen. i believe it when you say it. it will, yeah. it will happen. all: bila siri, bila aibu! cheering

if you feel distressed by the references in this programme, please speak to a health professional or an organisation that offers support, such as befrienders worldwide at www. befrienders.org. hello there. flooding still, of course, a concern for many, although the rain has now largely eased and the number of flood warnings is continuing to steadily drop. but there are still plenty of them in place. so do take a look at the details on those on the bbc weather website. of course, it's a lot drier now than it has been recently. we're set to keep that dry weather as we head through the next few days. it's certainly feeling colder. temperatures closer to the seasonal average, frost and fog forming through the overnight periods. also some icy stretches with the ground so damp, too, and the high pressure is set to stick around as we head into next week. it's just blocking all of these atlantic systems pushing in from the west. so we should stay dry and settled with some showers perhaps towards the east. and we're starting off sunday

morning with quite a widespread frost, although temperatures a little higher, just above freezing where we keep the layers of cloud, fog lingering on for much of the morning yet again. it's going to be very slow to lift and close some very dense patches out there. the sunshine very weak at this time of year, not doing too much to burn it back. but there will be a lot of sunshine around across scotland, northern england and northern ireland. sunny spells for england and wales, but always cloudier towards these north sea facing coasts with quite a noticeable northeasterly wind blowing a few showers onshore at times, but wintry over the north york moors and perhaps over the downs of kent. but these will be the days highs — two to six degrees celsius, although in the north easterly wind it's going to feel a good few degrees colder than that. and it's more of the same as we head into monday. perhaps the breeze picking up a little across east anglia and the south east of england as we head through the day. so feeling colder once again, but some sunny spells around again. any fog could linger on for much of the morning, even into the afternoon, temperatures between three and five degrees celsius. but once again, i think some

places could possibly feel subzero in exposure to that brisk northeasterly wind. it will be windier through the channel as well. and then into tuesday, we'll see more of a wind developing towards the south of england. and this will allow the cloud to break up a little more. so more in the way of sunshine probably. but again, highs of only three to 6 degrees celsius, some fog and some low cloud further north. and here's the outlook for our capital cities as we head through the rest of the week. temperatures will rise a little as we head into thursday and friday. it's still looking mostly dry. bye— bye.

live from washington, this is bbc news. after a mid—air emergency on an alaska airlines flight, us officials demand the grounding of 171 boeing 737

max 9 planes worldwide. israel's military says it has now "completed the dismantling" of hamas' military framework in northern gaza. and three years since supporters of donald trump stormed the us capitol, we'll reflect on what happened onjanuary 6th — a date that still divides america. i'm helena humphrey. good to help you with us. —— good to have you with us. us aviation officials have ordered the temporary grounding of more than 170 boeing 737 max 9 passenger planes after a window and section of the aircraft blew out in mid—air during a flight. the alaska airlines plane had 177 people on board on friday when it was forced to make an emergency landing. no—one was injured. safety checks are being carried out on those boeing planes in the us.

the uk and european air safety authorities have also