One Direction; Life at a Food Bank; General Election 2015

The Prime Minister goes to the Palace today to see the Queen and Parliament will be dissolved. Over the next six weeks the political parties will be after the support of women voters. So, what will the parties be saying to them and how often will we see a female politician in a prominent campaigning role? Jane talks to Allegra Stratton, Political Editor of BBC2’s Newsnight programme to look at what we can expect over the next few weeks.  
www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015 

900,000 people took free food parcels last year. In December 2012, Steph Hagen set up a food bank “The St Anne’s and Sneinton foodstore” on the St Anne’s estate in Nottingham.  Forty to fifty people use it every week, all with no income.  The food is donated by local churches, local companies and people in the local community. The council charge no rent for the building because it is a-hard-to-let property, and is going to be knocked down in the future.  Jane visited St Anne’s to meet Steph Hagen.

The writer and artist Louise Stern talks to Jane Garvey about her debut novel and the Maya community she visited for her research. Ismael and His Sisters, is set in a village in Mexico where many of the inhabitants are deaf and both the deaf and the hearing communicate in sign language. She also tells Jane about falling in love while in Mexico. 

After it was announced Zayn Malik was quitting the band One Direction, many might have been shocked to see the dramatic surge of tweets encouraging fans to self-harm with people sharing photos of their injuries. We talk to Lucie Russell from the charity Young Minds and London’s Mulberry School head Dr. Vanessa Ogden about the role social media plays in self-harm with young people today.