For Joshua Coombes, connection begins with one thing: truly seeing the person in front of you.

In this episode of The Greaterverse, Anne-Marie Kruk is joined by Joshua Coombes, speaker, author, educator and founder of #DoSomethingForNothing, a movement encouraging people to use their skills and time to connect with others.

Joshua’s journey began when he took his scissors onto the streets of London and started offering free haircuts to people experiencing homelessness. What began as a simple act grew into a decade of encounters around the world that challenged his understanding of helping others and taught him the power of meeting people with dignity, openness and vulnerability.

Today, Joshua is bringing those lessons into schools, encouraging young people to look beyond conventional ideas of success and explore what genuinely sparks their interest.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• Why Joshua believes we should ask young people why they want to pursue something, not simply what they want to be

• What people experiencing homelessness taught him about dignity, vulnerability and human connection

• Why the advice that resonates may be confirming something we already know

• How learning to face discomfort helped Joshua develop greater self-compassion

• Why sitting beneath a tree without your phone might reveal more than you expect

  
  

New Episodes Every Tuesday

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse

YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse

Amazon Music → https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse

Episode Resources: Joshua Coombes

Instagram → @joshuacoombes

Website → joshuacoombes.com

For Sam Trull, saving sloths has always been about one thing: getting them back where they belong, in the wild.

In this episode of The Greaterverse, Anne-Marie Kruk is joined by Sam Trull, co-founder and Executive Director of The Sloth Institute, a Costa Rica-based organisation dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation, release and conservation of sloths.

Sam’s journey to sloths began with a lifelong love of animals and a career working with primates. But after moving to Costa Rica and meeting her first baby sloth, everything changed. What followed was a life dedicated not simply to rescuing sloths, but to understanding what these extraordinary animals need to survive and thrive in the wild.

Today, Sam’s work spans rehabilitation, research, habitat conservation and advocacy. She talks about the painstaking process of preparing orphaned and injured sloths for release, why protecting and reconnecting forests is so critical to their survival, and the campaign to stop wild sloths being taken from their natural habitats for the pet and wildlife encounter trade.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• How one baby sloth changed the direction of Sam’s life
• What sloths are really like beyond the stereotypes

• What it really takes to rehabilitate a sloth and prepare it for life back in the wild
• How Sam and fellow conservationists helped expose the devastating reality behind the wild sloth trade
• Why Sam believes we need to learn to love animals a little less selfishly

New Episodes Every Tuesday

Episode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverse

TikTok → ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠

YouTube → ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse⁠⁠

Amazon Music → ⁠⁠https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse⁠⁠

Episode Resources: The Sloth Institute

Instagram → @theslothinstitute

Website → https://www.theslothinstitute.org/

One hand for one child changed the direction of Mat Bowtell’s life.

In this episode of The Greaterverse, Anne-Marie Kruk is joined by Mat Bowtell, engineer and founder of Free 3D Hands, which creates 3D-printed hands and arms for people around the world completely free of charge.

Mat’s journey began while he was working as a senior engineer at Toyota Australia. After making an Iron Man-style hand for four-year-old Eli, the reaction he received made him realise he had found something he wanted to dedicate his life to.

Today, Free 3D Hands is about much more than the devices Mat and his team make themselves. Their designs are open source, with more than 10,000 people and organisations around the world now making them too. Mat talks about the personal choices behind that journey, why access matters more to him than ownership, and his mission to do something wonderfully simple: manufacture joy.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• How one little boy’s smile changed Mat’s life forever
• Why Mat and his wife put buying their first home on hold to pursue Free 3D Hands
• How Mat is radically reducing that cost of assisted devices so that more people can access what they need
• How open-source designs have helped Free 3D Hands reach far beyond what Mat could achieve alone
• Why Mat believes life shouldn’t be about winning and losing, but finding ways for everyone to win

New Episodes Every Tuesday

pisode Resources: The Greaterverse

Instagram → @thegreaterverseTikTok → ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@thegreaterverse⁠YouTube → ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@thegreaterverse⁠Amazon Music → ⁠https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/d352edc3-c3c1-4680-af9d-787a5c9b7b16/the-greaterverse⁠

Episode Resources: Free 3D Hands

Instagram → @free3dhands

Website → www.free3dhands.org