Kobe Steele has always been an animal person in Australia, having lived with dogs and cats her whole life, treating them as beloved family members.
After a successful career in media as a TV and radio host and before finding her calling in conservation, Kobe brought her communication skills to important environmental causes.
After the sudden and tragic death of her beloved daughter Kristen, which plunged her into deep, prolonged grief Kobe’s life changed her forever.
At the insistence of her friend, Dr. Stephen Van Mill, Kobe travelled to Borneo where she had a life-transforming encounter with orangutans, especially the empathetic Faisal.
Determined to give back, Kobe began raising money for the Orangutan Foundation International Australia, taking eco-tours to educate others and support orangutan conservation efforts.
Despite battling cancer, Kobe’s spirit remained unbroken, and she continues to be an advocate for orangutans while enjoying life with her rehomed guide dog, Cook.
*****
We hope that you enjoyed this episode of Animals & Us (Kintsugi Heroes).
Please take care: if you have been triggered by listening to this episode we recommend you get in contact with someone who can help keep you safe and give you the support you need. This may be Lifeline, AA, a friend, a counsellor, or some other support group.
If you’d like to share your story on Kintsugi Heroes, please get in touch by contacting us via the website here – https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/contact
We hope you continue enjoying the heroes stories!
Warmly,
The Kintsugi Heroes team
YouTube || Facebook || Instagram || LinkedIn || Website
Theme Song: “Follow the Sun” by Xavier Rudd
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎙️ ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit Australian podcast network sharing real stories of resilience, disability, and transformation.
Named after the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the philosophy that what’s been broken can become more beautiful for the mending — every episode honours the cracks, the rebuild, and the human underneath.
We believe every story matters. Every scar has something to say. And every person quietly finding their way through deserves to be heard.
🏷️ Topics we cover: resilience, disability, trauma recovery, mental health, transformation, lived experience, chronic illness, neurodiversity, grief, identity, community, caregiving, refugee stories, animal therapy, ageing, older Australians, wellbeing, invisible illness, inclusion, personal growth, hope, rebuilding, human connection, Australian stories
📺 Series on this channel:
– Kintsugi Heroes — real stories of resilience | hosted by John Milham
– Animals & Us | hosted by Natalie Stockdale
– Grit Diaries: from Grit to Grace | hosted by Simone Allan & Maryan Bova
– From There to Here | hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd
– Golden Threads — stories of disability & resilience | hosted by Dan Dougherty
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔗 CONNECT WITH US
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌐
▶️
https://youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes
📘
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084850387170
📸
https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes
💼
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💛 SUPPORT THE NETWORK
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kintsugi Heroes is listener-supported and run entirely by volunteers. Your support helps us keep sharing stories that matter.
❤️ Donate (tax-deductible):
🤝 Partner with us:
🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week and join a community that believes in the power of human stories.
We’re all in this together. 🩡
#KintsugiHeroes #ResiliencePodcast #TransformationStories #DisabilityAwareness #AustralianPodcast #MentalHealthAwareness #RealStories #NotForProfit #HumanExperience #Resilience #PodcastAustralia #TrueStories #HealingJourney #StrengthInVulnerability #DisabilityInclusion