So Brave calendar 2025: Angel Akarana

The 2025 calendar for So Brave, a young women’s breast cancer charity, is out next month. Here’s a highlight with calendar model Angel Akarana.

Angel Akarana. Picture: David Caird

Angel Akarana had spent six hours having her body painted from head to toe, then dressed in an outlandish outfit inspired by Australian flora and fauna (though the ferns are a nod to her Kiwi heritage). No wonder she piqued the curiosity of people on Melbourne’s Chelsea Beach during this photoshoot for the 2025 calendar for So Brave, a young women’s breast cancer charity. “I got a few looks,” she laughs. No wonder: doesn’t she look fabulous, and full of joy?

Cancer runs deep in Angel’s family. Her grandmother and four great-aunts all had it in their forties. Her sister ­Karina survived two bouts in her thirties. Angel hoped she’d dodged that bullet. But in August 2021, soon after her 40th birthday, her partner Alex gave her a cuddle in bed, and his hand brushed against her breast and felt a lump. Long story short, she had triple-negative breast cancer. Her oncologist advised her against googling it, but of course she did, and what she found was grim: it was a rare, aggressive, fast-growing cancer. “I didn’t know if I would live,” she says.

Angel (who was named after the Jimi Hendrix song) says various things got her through the 18 months of chemo, surgery and radiation that followed. “Having a great community of friends and family around me, and of course Alex,” she says. Her workplace at the Cochlear ear implant centre was brilliant; exercise helped, too. “I was working out every day – and for that one hour I didn’t have to think about having cancer and all the ‘what ifs’,” she says. But most of all, it was about a positive mindset – for herself, and others. She got involved with So Brave, and set up a triple-negative breast cancer hub to raise awareness of the disease. “I want to help other women who are going through this,” she says.

Angel finished treatment in late 2022, and hasn’t needed any since. The experience has changed her, she says. She’s calmer, and no longer sweats the small stuff. “My outlook on life now is, if you want to do it, just do it.” She and Alex are off to New York for Christmas; they’re going to see some Broadway shows and live bands, and eat great food. “After the past three years, we really want to have some fun!”

The 2025 So Brave calendar is out next month, as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.