People Fixing the World

More than 100 million people have been forcibly displaced from their home around the world – fleeing conflict, natural disasters or persecution. Millions end up in refugee camps, living in tents. Around the world, designers and architects are trying to improve the lives of these displaced people, by improving the temporary homes they’re living in. From prefabricated shelters made using Swedish fla...

Meet the oceans’ unsung hero. Human activity is having a huge impact on the world’s oceans - global warming, pollution from fish farms and damage from the fishing industry are all threatening some of the oceans most important ecosystems. But one creature might be able to help. The humble sea cucumber – an animal in the same family as starfish that looks like a lumpy sausage and lives on the ocean...

Thousands of women are infected with HIV every week in Africa. Many can't persuade their partners to wear a condom, so it was hoped that a new form of protection could be a real game-changer. It's a small silicon ring which encircles the cervix and releases antiretroviral drugs, lowering the women’s risk of contracting HIV. Their partners aren't supposed to feel it, and so shouldn't even need to k...

Food waste from hotels and the heat from computers are being used to provide new sources of energy. In the fight against climate change, it is of vital importance to find new ways of making our energy go further. We visit Goa in India, to hear how food waste digesters - that turn waste into gas for cooking – are springing up everywhere. And in server centres around the world, we explore how the he...

Meet the people using the healing power of forests to help improve physical and mental health. In forest therapy, people are taken into the woods and taught to use what they see, hear and smell to calm their minds. This kind of therapy has its roots in the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing”, which was developed in the 1980s. Myra is joined by Gary Evans, founder of the Forest Ba...

Clearing up pollution can be a messy and expensive task, but around the world people are harnessing the power of plants to do the job for them. We hear how water hyacinths are going from hated weed to providing communities with a greener water filtration solution; how plants in the Niger Delta are helping rejuvenate land drenched in oil and devastated by fire and ask whether plants could be the fu...

Australia used to be one of the most linguistically diverse places, with over 200 languages. Today, many of Australia’s indigenous languages are considered “highly endangered”. Inspired by his native language, Hebrew, Ghil’ad Zuckermann is a linguistics professor who is on a mission to revive Australia’s dead and endangered languages, painstakingly piecing them back together from historical docume...

Chile is in the midst of a “megadrought” – year after year of low rainfall which has turned farmland to desert and left communities struggling to survive. But in the midst of the crisis, people in Chile have found ingenious ways of collecting, saving and cleaning water. We visit the hillside fog nets, AI powered irrigation system and a high-tech desalination plant that are helping people survive a...

A charity in the UK is building temporary wooden homes with just three small rooms. The idea is to give people who’ve been sleeping rough or living in hostels a step on to the housing ladder. We visit some of these ‘micro-homes’ in England and hear about a community of ‘tiny homes’ in Los Angeles. Plus, we visit a project in Belgium that’s trying to persuade young people to drink alcohol in modera...

In many communities grandmothers have a great influence on their families and communities. In Senegal we visit a project using grandmothers to give vital health information to adolescent girls and is also empowering them to influence men to stop practices like female genital mutilation. We also tell the story of the Granny Cloud, a team of volunteer grandmothers from all over the world, who used t...

Can playing board games help us fix real-world problems? All around the world, people play board games for fun. But in recent years, a new generation of designers have been creating games with a social purpose - to enable understanding about complex problems like climate change, inequality and deforestation, and collaboratively design strategies to solve them. We look at how a group of researchers...

The amount of sleep you get makes a huge difference to your life – don’t get enough and it can harm your health, productivity and decision making. But research also suggests that people on lower incomes sleep less, because of things like shift work, overcrowded housing and stress. So how do you improve the sleep of those most in need? We visit a project in the north of England which is recycling o...

In 2021 a video clip showing a seemingly magical bodysuit when viral on the internet. The clip showed a man who suffered constant convulsions quelling them after activating electrical pads on the suit. Many suggested the video was a hoax, but the Molli suit is real, and it is helping people with a range of conditions from cerebral palsy to multiple sclerosis. William Kremer finds out more. Meanwhi...

As the World Cup kicks off in Qatar, we look at the initiatives around the world which are using football as a way to solve problems off the pitch. We meet the people using the beautiful game to support men with their mental health in the UK, bring people together after conflict in Iraq and build the confidence of girls in the Netherlands. Presenter: Myra Anubi Reporters: Jo Casserly and Craig Lan...

How hard is it for women to break into male-dominated jobs? We look at two projects which are helping women to increase their earnings by training them in forms of work that have traditionally been done by men. In Uganda, we meet the woman training girls in careers from mechanical engineering and welding to carpentry and construction And in India, we visit the college that trains impoverished wome...

Tree-planting schemes don’t always work, so what’s the best way to do forest restoration? Projects around the world are planting huge numbers of trees as part of the fight against climate change. But not all of these schemes are successful – leaving dead saplings and wasted money in their wake. People Fixing the World works out how to do it right. In West Africa, we look at how farmers have refore...

Would you pick up litter if your life depended on it? Around the world, companies and governments are trying to incentivise people to pick up litter and recycle their waste. In Nigeria, we visit the tech start-up which encourages people to pick rubbish up off the street – and then swaps the plastic bottles, cartons and metals they collect for potentially life-saving healthcare. And in Turkey, we m...

Giant seabirds and shellfish are being used to help protect our planet. On an tiny island in the remote Southern Ocean, a French researcher wanted to find out why so many birds were being killed by fishing boats. By attaching radar loggers to Albatrosses, he inadvertently invented a powerful method for tracking down illegal vessels. And in New Orleans in the US, a restaurant owner is recycling ton...

How do you help young displaced people get a better start in life? Young people who become refugees often have their education disrupted – which can have a serious impact on their future prospects. But we find out about two schemes that are trying to help. In Jordan, a charity has developed a high school curriculum specifically aimed at young people who are displaced. Amala enables 16-25 year olds...

A growing number of people are looking for ways to be sustainable in death as well as life. We look at the latest end-of-life options aiming to be more environmentally friendly. From the company making compost of our human remains in the US to the so called ‘greenatoriums’ in India that are offering people a greener alternative to traditional cremations. Presenter: Myra Anubi Reporter/Producer: Fa...

Road traffic injuries are the eighth biggest cause of death in the world, with about 1.3m people killed every year. But 25 years ago, a movement started that changed the way policy-makers approach the issue. Vision Zero imagines a world in which no-one is killed or seriously injured on our roads. Its advocates say this isn’t a utopian ideal, but a mindset with numerous practical implications, and...

When 23 pupils were arrested after a series of fights at a school in the US city of Shreveport, a small band of parents decided to help the beleaguered teaching staff regain control. Step forward the ‘Dads on Duty’. They are a group volunteer fathers who patrol the corridors and playgrounds with a friendly smile and a few dad jokes. Their presence gives the kids some positive male role models and...

At least a third of food grown around the world fails to be eaten, with the resulting food waste causing 10 per cent of global carbon emissions. However, there are pioneers trying to tackle different issues along the chain. We visit a project linking farmers direct to customers in Puerto Rico, check out smart labels that extend the shelf life of food by revealing when food actually goes off, and r...

Farming animals for meat has a massive environmental impact, both in terms of land use and carbon emissions. But in order for people to eat less meat, they need to be excited about the alternatives. Around the world, people are coming up with ingenious meat replacements that look, taste and smell more like the real thing than ever. In Switzerland, we visit the perfume company that’s now turned its...

Police forces in the US are turning to futuristic technology to tackle a rise in violent crime and murder across the country. In one area of California, they are even using robots to patrol the streets. There, the police are claiming it's led to a reduction in crime and an increase in arrests. In New York they even experimented with a robot police dog, but with mixed results. This and other cuttin...