Born in Africa, Raised in Europe, Indian at heart: Sandhya Acevinkumar talks of Bollywood Weddings, Vitiligo, & Selfless Work [Ep 12]

Women Who Walk

Sandhya is one of the women whose story appears in my book, Women Who Walk. She talks of a happy childhood growing up in the immigrant Indian community of Mozambique, where she was born. When Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in the mid-70s, escalating civil unrest caused her parents to abandon the comfortable life they’d built, and return to Gujarat in the north west of India to start over. Three years later, when she was 10, the family migrated again this time to Lisbon, Portugal in search of opportunities. In this episode we talk about her grown daughters and the family's tradition of Bollywood-style weddings, her vitiligo, which she has lived with since she was a teen, and the evolution of her work with the philanthropic foundation, Minhembeti, that she and her husband founded in Mozambique and where Sandhya is actively involved in seva or selfless work.