Alle afleveringen van People Fixing The World – pagina 8 van 11

Stopping abuse with protection dogs

19 november 2019 · 23 min

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Almost 30% of women experience violence from a partner at some point in their lives. If they manage to escape the immediate crisis, it can be hard to get long term support to rebuild their lives, and survivors often continue to be harassed and threatened for years after leaving their abusers. A security dog firm in Spain is giving these people the confidence to restart their lives by pairing them with special protection dogs. The women train the animals, which then act as a deterrent to keep former partners away. Some critics say this tackles a symptom rather than the cause of domestic abuse, while others argue it’s a practical solution where societies are slow to change.
This podcast has been updated to correct a statistic that appeared in the original version. Lees meer

How to stop fires destroying whole neighbourhoods

12 november 2019 · 24 min

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Fires are common in South Africa’s informal settlements - it’s estimated that there are about 5,000 every year. They’re often caused by faulty wiring or open flames used for cooking or heating. Because the shacks are crammed in so tightly the flames can spread with frightening speed and destroy hundreds of homes.
So a group of entrepreneurs invented a smart fire alarm for just these sorts of places. It has a sensor that spots fast increases in heat and then sends alerts to all the neighbours so they can quickly take action. They also designed insurance to help people who are affected by these fires rebuild and replace what they’ve lost. We go to one of these settlements in Cape Town and find out what difference it has made to the lives of the people living there.
Reporter: Richard Kenny Lees meer

How to save the banana

5 november 2019 · 24 min

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Bananas are one of the most popular fruits on the planet - more than 100 million tonnes of them are eaten every year. But on banana plantations on four continents, a deadly fungus is creeping through the soil and destroying the plants. Lees meer

Some say the end is nigh for the banana. But from Australia to Colombia and from the Philippines to the Netherlands, work is going on to stop that happening.

We meet the farmers, scientists and gene technologists trying to find a way to save the fruit.

Reporter: Daniel Gordon

(Photo Credit: BBC)

The future of freight

29 oktober 2019 · 24 min

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Billions of tonnes of goods are moved by lorry every year – everything from food and clothes to building materials, electronic gadgets and toys. Lees meer

Most heavy-duty vehicles run on diesel and they account for a quarter of the EU’s CO2 emissions from road transport. But making eco-friendly lorries and trucks is challenging. Big vehicles need big batteries, which currently take too long to charge and take up too much room.

So Germany is trying out a few alternatives. The eHighway system enables lorries to connect to overhead electricity cables, just like trams and trains. And while lorries are connected, smaller on-board batteries could be charged up too to power the final leg of a journey.

The country is also investing in another technology: hydrogen. Fuel cells convert the gas into electricity and the only emissions from these vehicles are water vapour and warm air. Seventy-five hydrogen fuel pumps have already opened across the country.

Reporter: William Kremer

Gaming for good

22 oktober 2019 · 24 min

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Video games are often blamed for time-wasting and violence, but there’s a group of people proving this stereotype wrong. Lees meer

We meet the scientists behind a game designed to speed up finding a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, and we speak to a teenager who plays it because “it’s something I can do to help people in my spare time”.

Citizen science projects like this have had some remarkable successes, and gamers have been credited with significant research such as figuring out the structure of a protein that shares similarities with HIV.

Fans of this model believe gaming has a huge part to play in the future of problem solving.

Produced by Kathleen Hawkins

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The town rethinking the future of energy

15 oktober 2019 · 24 min

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The city of Vaasa in western Finland has built a reputation as a centre of innovation, where energy companies are working together to try to find solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems. Lees meer

Here, there’s a quiet conviction that climate change can be stopped and a belief that technology emerging from this area will help us make the shift to renewable forms of energy.

We meet the people behind a giant engine that can run on a variety of non-fossil fuels, hear about a portable plant that turns waste into energy and speak to scientists developing man-made fuels to replace oil and gas.

We also check out a company creating a new type of battery which it hopes will one day be able to store enough power to meet the needs of a whole city.

Reporter and producer: Erika Benke

(Photo credit: BBC)

Shopping for a better life

8 oktober 2019 · 23 min

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Imagine a grocery shop selling all your basic goods at a discounted price… and if you buy enough you also get free health insurance. It might seem too good to be true, but stores like this have been introduced at some factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Lees meer

Social entrepreneur Saif Rashid is trying to get better health care to some of the millions of garment factory workers who are on low wages. For them, to lose a day’s pay by taking time off sick can be disastrous and affording decent health care is almost impossible.

Now, with this scheme, they can get health insurance at the same time as getting discounts on their shopping. We find out how it’s changed some workers’ lives and why some people don’t take up the opportunity.

Reporter: Chhavi Sachdev
Producer: Tom Colls

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Turning waste into energy

1 oktober 2019 · 24 min

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Where there are humans, there’s waste. About two billion tonnes of garbage was produced in 2016, and the amount we generate is increasing. A lot of it ends up in unmanaged dumps or landfill sites. Much of it can’t be reused or recycled, but instead of seeing it go to “waste” some cement factories are using it to create energy. Lees meer

In this episode, People Fixing the World also looks at how tourists can help conservationists protect animals, such as lions, cheetahs and hyenas. All they have to do is share their holiday photos.

Reporters: Nick Holland and Jamie Ryan

(Photo Caption: Getty images)

Spotting the sound of a cardiac arrest

24 september 2019 · 24 min

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If you have a cardiac arrest you need help immediately to have any chance of surviving. Lees meer

That’s why emergency call operators ask questions specifically designed to identify the condition, ideally within 90 seconds.

Panicked and emotional callers don't always give simple answers, though, and evidence suggests cardiac arrests go unidentified in at least a quarter of emergency calls.

In Denmark, a team of computer engineers is using new technology to listen in on emergency phone calls and look for clues in the conversation that the operator may have missed.

We visit an emergency call centre in the Danish capital to see the system in action and find out if a computer really can detect cardiac arrests faster than humans working alone.

Producer / Reporter: Sam Judah
Photo Credit: Getty Images

The snakebite squad

17 september 2019 · 24 min

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It's estimated that a person dies from a snakebite every five minutes. Many more people face life-changing injuries, losing limbs and consequently their livelihoods. Lees meer

Antivenoms are expensive to make and are in short supply, particularly in remote communities where they are needed the most. And what’s more, snakebites in different parts of the world need different types of antivenoms. Many of the current treatments available in sub-Saharan Africa have been developed from snakes in Asia, but antivenom made to treat Indian snakebites won’t work as well on people bitten by snakes in Africa.

Now a new research facility in Kenya is trying to develop better antivenoms from African snakes.
And they've launched a motorbike snakebite ambulance service too, to get people who have been bitten to hospital fast.

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Meeting Colombia’s ‘Violentologist’

10 september 2019 · 24 min

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For the past 20 years, police chiefs and policy makers around the world have been fascinated by an idea: that violence spreads through cities like a disease, with patterns of clustering and transmission, and opportunities to inoculate communities against it. Lees meer

Violence-reduction programmes, influenced by epidemiology, have been implemented in Chicago, Glasgow and - most recently - London. But before these initiatives, a link between violence and disease was made by a Colombian doctor called Rodrigo Guerrero.

When Guerrero became mayor of Cali in Colombia in 1992, the city was in crisis. It was the height of a war between the Cali and Medellin drug cartels with the homicide rate reaching a shocking 120 per 100,000 people.

Guerrero’s approach was not to wage a war against the cartels, or to cave into corruption. Instead, he used his knowledge as a Harvard-trained epidemiologist to gather data about the exact causes of homicide, make hypotheses, and try interventions. “I was no longer an epidemiologist, but a violentologist,” he recalls.

In this programme Dr Guerrero gives reporter William Kremer a tour of his city and explains his approach.

Reporter: William Kremer

(Photo Caption: Dr Rodrigo Guerrero / Photo Credit: BBC)

A new way to detect an invisible poison in water

3 september 2019 · 23 min

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In the 1970s hundreds of thousands of wells were dug across Bangladesh to give people access to cholera-free water. But this led to what the World Health Organization has called the largest mass poisoning of a population in history, worse than Chernobyl. That’s because the water in the wells wasn’t tested for arsenic. Decades on, it’s a major problem. The WHO says more than 35 million Bangladeshis have been chronically exposed to arsenic in their drinking water, and about 40,000 die of arsenicosis every year. The field test for it is inaccurate and prone to human error. Most Bangladeshis drink from wells in their back yards which haven’t been tested for years, if at all. But now a gadget is being developed which will allow anyone to test a well cheaply, instantly and accurately. The scientific key to it is a tiny enzyme, found inside a bacterium affectionately known as Mr Tickle, which was discovered in an Australian gold mine. Lees meer

Reporters: Chhavi Sachdev and Jo Mathys

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Oysters to the rescue

27 augustus 2019 · 24 min

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Pollution, overfishing and oxygen depletion are damaging coastal waters across the world. Often fish and other marine life are the victims, but scientists are using one surprising creature to help solve the problem – the oyster. Lees meer

Oysters eat some chemical pollutants and fight algae blooms, which can have a damaging effect on biodiversity.

A group of teachers and scientists in New York is trying to reintroduce a billion of them into the harbour to make it a healthier, cleaner environment and strengthen the shoreline.

Another team based in France is strapping wires to oysters’ shells around oil rigs to monitor how often they open and close. That gives them vital information about how pollution levels are changing.

Reporter/ producer Jamie Ryan

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The concrete cleaners

20 augustus 2019 · 24 min

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Concrete is the most used man-made product in the world but it comes with a heavy environmental price. Between 5% and 7% of the world's annual carbon emissions come from producing the cement that glues concrete together. Most of these climate-changing gases are released when a vital ingredient, limestone, is melted down in the manufacturing process. But one company has devised a new type of cement that only solidifies when you pump carbon dioxide into it. The gas becomes locked in as it turns to concrete. This is similar to the way carbon dioxide has been stored in rocks by nature over millions of years. As Nick Holland reports, it's one of the solutions the industry could use to mitigate its impact on the environment. Lees meer

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Bangladesh’s biker girls

13 augustus 2019 · 24 min

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For the growing number of working women in Dhaka, commuting to work can be a challenge. Lees meer

The traffic is terrible and cars and taxis are expensive. Public transport is not only inconvenient, it is sometimes unsafe - many women face unwanted sexual attention on buses.

So after his wife was harassed by a taxi driver, one young entrepreneur set up a motorbike ride-share service with a difference. Not only are the customers all women, the drivers are too.

Reporter Chhavi Sachdev meets some brave women finding new ways to navigate Bangladeshi traffic and society.

(Photo Caption: Kobita on her scooter / Photo Credit: BBC)

Putting a price on carbon

6 augustus 2019 · 24 min

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For most of human history, pumping carbon dioxide into the air has come free of charge. Burning fossil fuels powered the industrial revolution and powers most industries to this day. Lees meer

But all that carbon stays up in the atmosphere and dealing with the consequences won’t be free. The cost of climate change stretches beyond the lives lost in natural disasters. There will be a huge economic cost - to pay for sea defences, put out forest fires and care for millions of climate refugees.

Around the world, governments and businesses are finding different ways of putting a price on the carbon that industries pump out. They’re trying to change how the global economy operates, by making industry pay for the harm their carbon emissions cause.

Reporter: Tom Colls

(Photo Caption: A cloud and money / Photo Credit: Getty Images)

A simple way to help a relative if they’re arrested

30 juli 2019 · 24 min

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In the US most people who are charged with a crime can’t afford expensive lawyers and investigators to prepare their case. The public defenders who represent them usually have heavy workloads and limited resources. Family and friends would often like to help but don’t know how. Lees meer

So a group in California is trying to make things fairer by teaching them how the legal system works and explaining what they can do. It shows them how to dissect police reports, put together a social biography for the defendant and get crucial evidence for their lawyer.

Started in San Jose, California, the model is now being used across the US and beyond.

We hear from people whose lives have been transformed by this approach.

Presenter: Nick Holland
Producer: Claire Bates

(Photo Credit: Silicon Valley De-Bug)

Stopping child marriage with solar lanterns

23 juli 2019 · 24 min

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It’s estimated that more than 100 million girls under the age of 18 will be married in the next decade. Lees meer

One country that’s trying to end the practice of child marriage is Ethiopia. There, the Berhane Hewan programme, meaning ‘Light for Eve’ in Amharic, promises families a solar-powered light if their daughter remains unmarried and in school until she’s at least 18. This approach is known as a conditional asset transfer.

The solar lanterns enable girls to study after dark and they can also be used to charge mobile phones, which is particularly useful in remote areas with no electricity. Girls are taught to make money from the lanterns by charging neighbours to power up their mobile phones too.

People Fixing the World visits Dibate, a small village in western Ethiopia. More than 600 girls in this part of the country have received a solar lamp.

Reported by Lily Freeston
Produced by Ruth Evans and Hadra Ahmed

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Trieste’s mental health ‘revolution’

16 juli 2019 · 24 min

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Each year, mental health practitioners from around the world visit Trieste in Italy to see what they can learn from the city’s approach to mental illness. Lees meer

In 1978, Trieste led a ‘revolution’ in Italian mental health care by closing its asylums and ending the restraint of patients. Today the city is designated as a ‘collaboration centre’ by the World Health Organization in recognition of its pioneering work.

Reporter Ammar Ebrahim visits Trieste to see how the system works - from the informal community centres where people can drop in and stay as long as they need, to the businesses that offer career opportunities for those who have been through the system.

We hear about the city’s policy of ‘no locked doors’, and ask how Trieste deals with patients other societies may deem ‘dangerous’.

Presenter: Tom Colls
Producer: Sam Judah

(Photo Caption: “Freedom is therapeutic” written on a wall in Trieste / Photo Credit: BBC)

The school that puts wellbeing first

9 juli 2019 · 24 min

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On average, one in eight children in the UK has a mental health disorder – that’s about three children in every classroom. Yet there are just 4.5 psychiatrists for every 100,000 young people - that’s fewer than most other European countries. With the UK’s mental health provision for children so stretched, help often ends up coming from families and schools. Lees meer

One school in London has actively taken up this challenge. Highgate Primary School has developed a unique system in which dozens of children can get one-to-one sessions with trainee therapists, while some struggling parents are also offered support. The school has redesigned its playground so children can find areas that fit their mood, and it has given over more time to activities such as gardening, cooking and drama.

Today’s programme features some of the children that have benefited from these ideas – but can other schools replicate them?

Reporter: William Kremer

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Residents turn detective to fight crime

2 juli 2019 · 23 min

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Neighbours in the US are using cameras that read car number plates to record vehicles driving down their streets.
When there’s a crime they check through the footage and pass any leads on to the police. But critics say the Flock Safety system, run by a private company, is open to abuse and warn of privacy concerns.
Is it too risky to encourage residents to do police work, or a realistic response to under-resourced law enforcement? Lees meer

Presenter: Tom Colls
Producer: Claire Bates

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Life-saving surgery, but not by a doctor

25 juni 2019 · 23 min

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More than five billion people around the world don’t have access to safe, affordable surgical care. It has been a big problem in Ethiopia where most specialist doctors are concentrated in the cities, contributing to high rates of maternal mortality. Lees meer

In 2009 the Ethiopian government began training Integrated Emergency Surgical Officers. Health workers, such as nurses and midwives, are taught to perform emergency operations in remote, rural clinics where there are no surgeons. It was the first programme of its kind and is seen as a model for other developing countries.

More than 800 surgical officers have now completed the three-year Masters programme and are performing hundreds of caesareans and other emergency procedures each year.

People Fixing The World follows one of them, Seida Guadu, as she operates to try to save the lives of a mother and her unborn child.

Reporter: Ruth Evans
Producers: Lily Freeston and Hadra Ahmed

(Picture credit: BBC)

Portugal, drugs and decriminalisation

18 juni 2019 · 24 min

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In the 1990s Portugal had a major heroin problem, and when it came to people injecting drugs it had one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the EU. It took a radical approach and decriminalised all personal drug use. Lees meer

The law introduced in 2001 means people carrying drugs for personal consumption aren’t prosecuted - instead they are referred to health and social services to receive treatment, and the focus is on harm reduction.

And the strategy worked. The number of people using drugs fell dramatically, new HIV and Hepatitis C infections dropped and drug-related crime became much less of a problem.

So why haven’t more countries followed their lead and adopted this model?

Produced by Hannah McNeish for BBC World Service

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

Can capturing carbon buy us time to tackle climate change?

11 juni 2019 · 23 min

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To prevent the worst effects of climate change, we need to massively cut how much carbon we pump into the atmosphere. But those carbon cuts might not happen in time, so another approach may be needed. Lees meer

Around the world, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are working on ways to give us more time to change our way of life. They’re developing technologies and techniques that effectively do climate change in reverse. Instead of pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, they suck it in and store it.

These projects range from using rock dust for “enhanced weathering” to trap carbon in farmers’ fields, to the power station attempting to capture it on its way up the chimney.

We go on a tour of these projects to see if they offer hope for the future.

Producer and reporter: Tom Colls

Photo Caption: Carbon dioxide illustration / Photo Credit: Getty Images

Can sleep deprivation help treat bipolar disorder?

4 juni 2019 · 24 min

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People diagnosed with bipolar disorder are commonly treated with a variety of drugs. They aren’t always effective and can come with a range of side effects. Lees meer

For several decades, an Italian psychiatrist has been pioneering a different approach. By asking his patients to stay awake for 36 hours three times over the course of a week – and combining the counterintuitive idea with bright light therapy and lithium – he has found that some of them demonstrate a remarkable improvement in mood, which can last indefinitely.

The therapy has caught the attention of researchers across the world, and new trials are being carried out, but the idea is not without its critics.

Sam Judah spends a week with a cohort of patients as they undergo sleep deprivation treatment at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, and tries to find out if it is effective.

Producer: Sam Judah

(Photo caption: Francesco Benedetti / Photo credit: BBC)

Audience takeover: Your plastic solutions

28 mei 2019 · 24 min

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We hear what you, our listeners, are doing to tackle the problem of plastic waste. The idea came about when you started getting in touch after a previous episode asking why we don’t reuse and refill the plastic containers we’ve already got. (The Reuse and Refill Revolution: Tuesday 23 April.) Since then you’ve sent lots of alternative ideas and suggestions. Nick Holland and Kat Hawkins hear from shoppers cutting down on packaging by buying in bulk, people organising litter-picking trips to clean up plastic from the desert and an idea to create giant floating plastic pontoons as platforms for new housing. There are some surprising tips too, like from the woman who reuses empty pet food sachets to store her pre-cooked meals in the freezer and the man who melts down his own plastic waste and turns it into fence posts. Lees meer

Presenters Kat Hawkins / Nick Holland
Producer Nick Holland

(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Reinventing the ranch

21 mei 2019 · 24 min

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It’s not a good time to be a meat eater. Pressure is growing to tackle climate change – and the livestock sector produces 15% of global greenhouse emissions, with cattle farming accounting for two thirds of that. Not only do cows produce damaging methane gas, but creating pasture for the animals has led to widespread deforestation. Lees meer

Nowhere is this more evident than in Colombia: 34 million hectares of land there is devoted to cattle ranching. The land that’s been cleared to graze cattle is often left without trees, meaning the soil quickly becomes arid and useless.

Now an ambitious project aims to demonstrate that cattle ranching can be ecologically sound. An expert team is helping more than 4,000 farmers dramatically remodel their land. Instead of open fields, they are planting trees and shrubs, and allowing small plants to grow among the grass.

This more intensive planting helps to store carbon and provides a healthier diet for cows, meaning they produce less methane and more milk and meat. But are other cattle farmers likely to follow suit and adopt this “silvopastoral” approach?

Presenter: Kat Hawkins
Reporter: William Kremer

(Photo credit: BBC)

Working Less For The Same Pay

14 mei 2019 · 25 min

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Matsuri Takahashi was 24 when she died. She took her own life after doing more than 100 hours overtime a month at a large advertising company in Japan. Lees meer

She was a victim of karoshi - dying as a result of overwork. It’s a phenomenon that’s well known in Japan where stories of employees working ridiculously long hours – sometimes until four or five in the morning - are common.

The government has introduced a new law to limit overtime, although critics say it doesn’t go far enough and the whole working culture needs to change.

Working long hours doesn’t necessarily mean more work gets done, so elsewhere, a company in New Zealand has reduced hours without cutting pay. Staff are given a day off each week if they can get five days’ work done in four. Should we all be doing this?

Presenter: Nick Holland
Reporters: Jamie Ryan and Mariko Oi

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

Could a device invented in the 1930s help end period poverty?

7 mei 2019 · 23 min

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Period poverty affects girls and women across the world who can’t afford to buy sanitary pads or tampons each month. So what are the alternatives? We look at two very different solutions. Lees meer

In a refugee camp in Jordan, we follow one woman as she tries to get a sanitary pad micro-factory off the ground.
While in Malawi, they’re handing out menstrual cups to teenagers - which last for 10 years and don’t produce any waste.

Presenter: Vibeke Venema
Producer: Tom Colls

(Photo Caption: A menstrual cup / Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The tree detectives tackling illegal logging

30 april 2019 · 25 min

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If you examine the atoms in a piece of wood, you can tell to the nearest 10km where it has come from. Environmental factors, such as the climate, affect trees as they grow and that signature remains in the wood after it is processed. Lees meer

An international group of scientists is hoping to use this information to tackle illegal logging, which contributes to a loss of biodiversity and costs governments billions of dollars in lost revenues each year.

It’s thought that up to 30% of timber on the global market comes from illegally-sourced wood, and ends up as all sorts of items in shops around the world.

Now, stable isotope analysis is being used to identify the unique profile of these products. And when scientists find items don’t come from the place specified on the label, the information can be used to hold shops accountable.

We visit the wood archive at Kew Gardens and speak to experts using this technology to help stem the flow of illegally-smuggled timber and protect the planet’s endangered forests.

Presenter: Tom Colls
Reporter and Producer: Nicola Kelly

(Photo Caption: Logging in the Amazon / Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The reuse and refill revolution

23 april 2019 · 23 min

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Should we reuse and refill plastic packaging to limit the amount being thrown away? Nick Holland looks at different ways people are trying to make this happen. One idea is to take used containers back to the supermarkets where, in the future, giant vending machines could refill them.
But the scale of the challenge is huge and getting consumers to change their shopping habits will be hard. Lees meer

Presenter: Tom Colls
Producer and Reporter: Nick Holland

(Photo Credit: BBC)

DNA tests for dogs to tackle problem poo

16 april 2019 · 23 min

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The average dog produces about 124kg of poo every year, but not all of that gets picked up and disposed of properly. Lees meer

So people living in many residential blocks in the US have had their dogs’ DNA registered on a database, in an attempt to tackle problem poo. If they don’t pick up after their dog, a sample of what’s left behind is sent off to a lab so the perpetrator can be identified.

The company behind the tests says it works well in private, gated communities but what about public parks and pavements?

Could other solutions, such as offering rewards for picking up poo, or posting dog mess backs to the owners, work in the long term?

And we hear how Ontario in Canada is collecting dog poo to turn it into energy.

Presenter: Kat Hawkins
Reporters: Ros Tamblyn and Claire Bates

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The great mosquito swap

9 april 2019 · 23 min

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Every year, it’s estimated that nearly 400 million people around the world are infected with dengue fever, a potentially fatal illness that’s passed on by mosquitoes. Lees meer

No vaccine is effective at preventing people catching the disease, but what if the mosquitoes themselves were treated to stop them spreading it?

In one city that is severely affected – Medellin in Colombia — an ambitious project is underway to swap wild mosquitoes for a variety that is identical in every way, but with one crucial difference. These mosquitoes have been bred from specimens injected with bacteria that make it impossible to transmit not just dengue, but also the Zika and chikungunya viruses, and Yellow Fever.

Buoyed by successful projects in Australia, the World Mosquito Program is releasing millions of newly-minted mosquitoes across Medellin, in the hope that they will replace the wild population.

And to reassure the public, schoolchildren are being taught to love mosquitoes, and even to breed them — a message that contradicts what they’ve been brought up to believe.

Presenter: Tom Colls
Reporter / Producer: William Kremer

(Photo Caption: The Aedes Aegyptii Mosquito / Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The mums saving each other from a taboo condition

2 april 2019 · 23 min

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"Get rid of the girl who smells" - this is the reaction thousands of traumatised new mothers face every year. A prolonged or obstructed childbirth can lead to a condition called obstetric fistula, where women are left incontinent, continually leaking urine and faeces. Without treatment they often become socially isolated. Lees meer

But in Madagascar, some women who have successfully been treated for fistula become patient ambassadors. They travel on foot to remote villages to find and help others with the same condition. They personally accompany them to clinics to get life-changing surgery and support. Afterwards, those women return to their villages and begin campaigning for other women to seek care.

Many medical organisations around the world are waking up to the power of the patient's voice - patient ambassadors can resonate with vulnerable groups in a way that other kinds of outreach can't.

Reporter/ Producer: Amelia Martyn-Hemphill

(Photo Caption: Felicia - a patient ambassador in Madagascar / Photo Credit: BBC)

Can phages save us as antibiotics stop working?

26 maart 2019 · 23 min

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Tens of thousands of people die every year because bacterial infections are becoming resistant to antibiotics. That number is expected to explode, as more antibiotics stop working, making antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, one of the gravest health threats facing humanity. Lees meer

But could viruses come to the rescue? Bacteriophages, or phages for short, are viruses that infect and kill bacteria. They were discovered 100 years ago and have been used to treat infections for decades in Georgia. But despite their abundance in nature and proven ability to kill infections, their potential has not yet been realised outside the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Steffanie Strathdee, who stumbled across phages as she tried to save her husband’s life, is now leading a campaign to put phages on the map. But can their use be scaled up from individual and costly treatments to a fully-operational weapon in the war against AMR?

Reporter: Tom Colls

(Photo Caption: A phage under an electron microscope / Photo Credit: University of Leicester)

The digital detectives tackling child sexual abuse

19 maart 2019 · 23 min

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Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, is taking an innovative approach to solving disturbing crimes. Lees meer

It holds more than 40 million images of child sexual abuse. In many cases the perpetrators remain at large, and their victims unidentified.

By posting parts of those photos online - with the abusers and their victims removed - they are hoping members of the public can help them find out where the crimes took place, and so trace the perpetrators.

Around the world, ordinary people are combing over the photos, using online tools and local knowledge to uncover fresh clues - and the results can be remarkable.

Sam Judah meets the digital detectives trying to geolocate the places where the photos were taken, and asks Europol how their work can lead to the prosecution of criminals.

Presenter: Kat Hawkins
Reporter: Sam Judah

(Photo Caption: Europol is asking for help identifying this location / Photo Credit: Via Europol)

Crossing divides in Cyprus

12 maart 2019 · 24 min

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Cyprus has been divided since 1974, but a community centre is bringing Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots together in the buffer zone between the two sides. Lees meer

Cyprus has been a divided island since 1974, with Turkish Cypriots living in the north and Greek Cypriots in the south. The two communities have been able to cross the island at police checkpoints since 2003, but memories of past conflict have held many back.

However, one unique community centre is bringing people together right in the buffer zone that divides the two sides. Staffed by both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, the Home for Co-operation encourages people to meet and form friendships through shared interests, from djembe drumming to salsa classes. It hosts projects and groups trying to stop old prejudices taking root in the younger generation. It also provides a base for businesses and social enterprises, all seeking to melt decades of distrust.

But how big a difference can one centre make on an island of one million people, in the face of political problems and personal trauma?

Presenter: Nick Holland
Produced: Claire Bates

(Photo Caption: Lefki Lambrou and Hayriye Rüzgar / Photo Credit: BBC)

Last video messages to help children grieve

5 maart 2019 · 23 min

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Children who lose a parent may struggle to come to terms with this for the rest of their lives. In the UK about one in 20 children will lose a parent before the age of 16. In other countries, the figure is even higher. However, Gaby Eirew thinks she has a solution that can help. She works in counselling, often dealing with childhood trauma. Using that experience she has created a free app that has been downloaded in more than 30 countries around the world. It helps parents to create an archive of “selfie-style” videos on their phone, for their children to watch in the future. The app prompts parents to address the questions she has consistently found bereaved children want answered. Not all are what you might expect. Lees meer

Presenter: Kathleen Hawkins
Reporter: Dougal Shaw
Producer: Alison Gee

(Photo Caption: Gaby Eirew / Photo Credit: BBC)

Contains extracts from the song “Never Forget” by Sky, recorded by Indi B Productions

Turning old clothes into new ones

26 februari 2019 · 24 min

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It’s estimated that 400 billion square metres of fabric are made every year – enough to cover Germany – for the fashion industry. The sector produces a similar amount of greenhouse gases to the international airline and shipping industries combined. Lees meer

The two most-used materials are cotton and polyester. Growing cotton requires a vast amount of land and water, and often chemicals too. Polyester is a by-product of the oil industry which has a massive environmental impact.

But after clothing has been used, just 1% of it is recycled in a way that means it can be turned into other clothes. Much of what’s left ends up in landfill or is burned.

What if that were to change and new clothes could easily be made out of old ones?
Companies across the world are trying to “close the loop” in the fashion industry, developing chemical processes to turn used fabric back into materials that can be used again.

Sweden’s Re:newcell is transforming old cotton into useable material, while the UK’s Worn Again has come up with a process to enable the re-use of blended textiles.

But are these processes viable? Will turning old pants into new shirts save the planet – or is the solution something much deeper?

Presenter: Nick Holland
Producer: Jamie Ryan

(Photo Caption: Clothes at a textile sorting depot / Photo Credit: BBC)

Predicting suicide

19 februari 2019 · 25 min

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About 800,000 people take their own lives every year, that’s one person every 40 seconds, according to the World Health Organization. Lees meer

For decades, doctors and researchers have tried to establish the key risk factors that identify someone as being at risk of suicide - depression, drug addiction and low social support have all been proposed - but research shows that no one variable gives doctors a useful steer.

This makes it very difficult for mental health professionals to predict who might try to kill themselves.

Now the psychologist Joseph Franklin is trying a new approach: to utilise machine learning to spot patterns in how hundreds of variables come together to put an individual at higher risk of suicide. He has developed a computer algorithm that is able to spot the subtle interplay of factors and make much more accurate suicide predictions. At the same time, researchers in the US are developing programmes that scan social media posts for signs that a town may be about to experience a higher rate of suicide than normal.

But how should these tools be used by doctors and public health bodies? And is there a risk that even as machines begin to understand suicide, doctors will remain in the dark about how to help their patients, and when?

Presenter: Nick Holland
Reporter: William Kremer

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

‘No Men Allowed’ – The Gym Getting Women Fit and into Work

12 februari 2019 · 23 min

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In 2006, Turkish entrepreneur Bedriye Hülya set up her first women-only gym, b-fit. It’s cheap to join and is now a successful chain. Lees meer

Many women in Turkey don’t feel comfortable exercising alongside men and their male relatives may not allow them to use mixed gyms, so b-fit is a place where they can go.

Women in Turkey are more likely to be overweight than men, according to government statistics, and the World Health Organization says nearly two thirds don’t get enough exercise.

All the gyms are staffed and run by women so the company says it’s creating jobs in a country where just 34% of women work.

But some feminists feel that separating men and women is not the way forward, and women should be made to feel welcome everywhere.

We went to Istanbul to see how the business works.

Presenter: Kat Hawkins
Reporter: Neyran Elden
Producer: Vibeke Venema

(Image Credit: BBC)

How Nepal Doubled its Tiger Population

5 februari 2019 · 24 min

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Over the past 10 years, Nepal has almost doubled its population of Bengal tigers – it’s estimated the country now has 235 of the magnificent beasts. After years of decline, a combination of smart strategies has turned the tide. Lees meer

The army runs anti-poacher teams, using CCTV, data monitoring and elephant patrols. Income from tourism is channelled to communities bordering the park to build fences to protect them from wildlife and create business opportunities to make poaching less attractive. And the delicate forest ecosystem is managed and expanded, with jungle highways connecting the national parks.

We go on a forest safari to see how it all works.

Presenter: Amelia Martyn-Hemphill
Reporter: Tom Colls

(Image Caption: A tiger / Image Credit: Getty Images)

The shopping mall where everything is recycled

29 januari 2019 · 24 min

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There are 14 specialist shops at the Retuna shopping mall in Eskilstuna, Sweden, but they all have one thing in common. Every item for sale in the shopping centre is second-hand. The clever thing about this mall is its location. It is right next to the city’s refuse and recycling centre. When people come to drop off mattresses and cardboard, they also pass by the mall’s basement to leave unwanted items that can be resold – or indeed items that can be ‘upcycled’, given a new lease of life as a different kind of object. Every shop is run as a money-making business, rather than a charity. The mall also hosts a college that offers a one-year certified course in upcycling, hoping to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs who believe in sustainability. Presiding over the whole enterprise is Anna Bergstrom. Her mission is to make second-hand shopping a mainstream experience – even one that’s a little bit glamorous. Lees meer

The Turkish App to Help Autistic Children Learn

22 januari 2019 · 23 min

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There are an estimated 350,000 autistic children in Turkey, but only 20,000 to 30,000 of those children are thought to be in education. Lees meer

And because of stigma around the condition, many parents are reluctant to get a diagnosis.

Zafer Elcik’s younger brother is autistic and was unable to read or write. But Zafer noticed that while his brother’s attention span was usually very short, he would happily spend an hour playing on his smartphone. So Zafer created Otsimo, an app with a range of games, to help his brother read and write. Now Otsimo has 100,000 users in Turkey, the US and Canada.

Otsimo says it’s “democratising education” for people with special needs. But can an app really make much difference?

Presenter: Nick Holland
Reporter: Vibeke Venema

Image Caption: Alper and Zafer Elcik
Image Credit: BBC

The Talent Show for Honest People

15 januari 2019 · 24 min

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In this talent show, it doesn’t matter if you can sing or dance, the winner just has to be honest and good at their job. It’s called Integrity Idol and the aim is to “name and fame” honest government workers - people who reject corruption and refuse to take bribes. The idea is that this creates positive role models to change society for the better. Lees meer

The competition is being run in seven countries around the world. Hundreds of candidates are found from each country, a panel of judges choses the five best, and the public votes on the winner.

World Hacks visits the final of the competition in Nepal and asks what difference this approach can make.

Reporter: Tom Colls

Image Caption: The winner of Integrity Idol
Image Credit: BBC

Does the world need more babies?

8 januari 2019 · 23 min

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People in many parts of the world are having fewer babies than they were 60 years ago, and that’s worrying some countries. Lees meer

So in order to maintain the proportion of people of working age, governments have come up with campaigns to try to get people to have more children. Polish couples have been encouraged to “breed like bunnies” and speed dating events have been laid on for singles in Georgia.

Nicola Kelly visits Norway, which has tackled the issue in a different way, ensuring gender equality, healthcare and education make it attractive to have more than one child.

But as the global population grows, does the world really need more babies? We ask whether this just puts greater strain on the planet’s resources.

Presenter: Nick Holland
Reporter/producer: Nicola Kelly

Image Credit: Getty Images

Checking in with the Problem Solvers

1 januari 2019 · 33 min

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Do you ever wonder what happens to the people and projects we feature? This week we revisit innovators around the world to see how their schemes have developed. We catch up with the team catching junk in space, and the PODD disease detectives in Thailand tell us how they’ve successfully stopped the spread of infections. We also check in with the man who planned to give QR codes to homeless people so that passers-by can scan them with their mobile phones and donate money. Lees meer

Presenters: Nick Holland, Elizabeth Davies
Producer: Daniel Gordon

Image Caption: Satellite
Image Credit: NASA

The Little Libraries Bringing Books into People’s Homes

25 december 2018 · 23 min

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In 2009, Todd Bol built a small box in the shape of a school, filled it with books and placed it on his front lawn in Wisconsin, in the US. The book exchange soon became a focal point for the community. Now there are more than 75,000 Little Free Libraries in 88 countries across the world, including Sudan, Russia and the UK. They are open to everyone, they never close and have no paperwork or overdue fines. With the motto “Take a book, leave a book”, the aim is to bring people together and get more books into people’s homes. Lees meer

Reporter: Susila Silva
Presenter: Tom Colls

Photo Caption: Little Free Library in Brighton
Photo Credit: BBC

Can US Entrepreneurs Help Fix Education in Africa?

18 december 2018 · 23 min

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Many African countries face huge challenges in education. Millions of children completing primary school still struggle to read and teachers that should be in classrooms are routinely absent. Lees meer

Two US entrepreneurs think they have a solution: a network of profit-driven low-cost private schools, called Bridge Academies, that can be created and staffed at lightning speed. Lessons are scripted by ‘master educators’, and teachers read them aloud, word for word, from e-readers.

Along with awards, the model has attracted a tidal wave of criticism from teaching unions, NGOs and governments too. World Hacks visits a Bridge Academy in Kenya to ask whether the controversial idea can work.

Presenter: Kat Hawkins
Reporter: Sam Judah

Photo Credit: BBC

Can This Smart Street Stop Drinkers Getting Violent?

11 december 2018 · 24 min

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World Hacks visits a long, narrow street in the heart of the Dutch city of Eindhoven. A quarter of a mile long and lined with pubs and bars, Stratumseind is a drinking destination for the country’s young people and football fans. Unfortunately, the good times are frequently marred with violence. On any given Saturday night, police make about 20 arrests or detentions, many involving alcohol-related aggression. Lees meer

Now the city authorities are using sophisticated technology to monitor the activities of the street, including cameras that can count people and microphones that can tell the difference between someone squealing with laughter and screaming in fright.

Stratumseind’s drinkers are also unwitting participants in a series of experiments to monitor whether subtle changes in their environment have an impact on their behaviour – whether that’s changing the colour of the street lights to calm people down or introducing a scent to help de-escalate tensions.

Producer: William Kremer

Photo Credit: City of Eindhoven, Living Lab Stratumseind