Hot Shots 2025: Datshiane Navanayagam

From BBC1’s Countryfile to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Datshiane Navanayagam has made a huge impression on the BBC’s output over the past couple of years – and her journey there has been more remarkable still.

Homeless as a child, living on free school meals and with a severely disabled father who died before he saw her graduate, Navanayagam took “a real leap of faith and determination” to pursue her journalism career. Becoming homeless again in her twenties cemented her desire to give a platform to under-represented voices and expose social injustice.

Starting in local radio, she secured a place on the BBC’s Production Trainee Scheme and went on to make Working And Homeless, a 2018 C4 Dispatches doc about working people forced to sleep on the streets due to high rents.

Her journalism has graced Radio 4’s File On 4 and Countryfile, where she’s covered urgent issues including fly tipping. She also fronts the weekly BBC World Service show The Conversation and joined Woman’s Hour this year.

Training and development consultant Donna Taberer observes: “Datshi’s background means she often finds – and seeks out – the stories and voices that are largely forgotten in current affairs. She is the most dogged and exemplary journalist.”