People Fixing the World

The Igba Boyi apprenticeship scheme, described as the world's largest business incubator, has helped the Nigerian Igbo people build generational wealth in the devastating aftermath of the Civil War. The scheme involves a master mentoring an apprentice who, upon graduation, is "settled" with start-up funds and contacts to launch their own business. BBC Reporter Chiagozie Nwonwu explores this vital...

Could AI technology help the fashion industry get to grips with sustainability, and arrest its brutal impact on the planet? With a huge carbon footprint, vast water usage and filling up of landfills, the fashion industry’s impact is well documented. But companies throughout the supply chain have rolled out tech solutions, many of them AI powered, to address these issues. How effective are they? At...

8% of Swedish adults say they have no close friends, according to one survey. But a wave of innovative projects is trying to change that. From buddy schemes to corporate “friendship hours” and grassroots social clubs, we explore how adults are going about enhancing their social lives — and what other nations might learn. People Fixing The World from the BBC is about brilliant solutions to the worl...

Presenter Myra Anubi and the team chat about some of their favourite projects that have been covered on People Fixing The World over the last twelve months, from radioactive rhinos in South Africa to the Buz Stop Boys cleaning up streets in Ghana. People Fixing The World from the BBC is about brilliant solutions to the world's problems. We release a new edition every Tuesday. We'd love you to let...

The World Health Organisation recommends all pregnant women should have at least one ultrasound before six months. However, only half of women do in sub-Saharan Africa. This week we visit Kenya to see how portable ultrasound devices are flagging up any issues early. And how AI could overcome the barrier of not having enough trained midwives on the ground. People Fixing The World from the BBC is ab...

Children with dyslexia are often misunderstood — but what if their struggles in school are actually signs of unique strengths? We visit a pioneering school in Kenya that’s transforming education for dyslexic students where children learn through sound, movement and visual tools. And in the UK, we attend a business event with a difference held by the charity Made By Dyslexia — where employers and c...

We look at solutions that focus on teaching children how to respect each other and understand their emotions better. We visit a primary school in Botswana where a charity called Think Equal is helping teachers put empathy at the heart of their teaching and speak to Think Equal's founder Leslee Udwin. And Myra visits a school in East London where teenagers are being taught how to interpret what the...

Peru is famous for its diverse and innovative cuisine - but how is it making sure its venerable food heritage is preserved for decades to come? We meet the indigenous Quechua people who are cultivating more than 1300 species of potato, working with scientists to safeguard seeds in community banks as part of both ecological and cultural efforts. And we hear how communities in the high Andes are tur...

Learning to read empowers people, reduces poverty and increases their job chances. Yet more than 700 miliion adults are illiterate, the majority of them women. We look at innovations to help adults learn how to read from flatpack classrooms in flood-prone regions of Bangladesh, to an app teaching tens of thousands in Somaliland. Plus how adults in the UK are improving their reading skills thanks t...

How do you save threatened species? This week we look at two novel solutions. In the UK, scientists are developing a unique contraceptive that will be fed in a nutty spread to grey squirrels, an invasive species that threatens the native red squirrel. And how scientists are moving albatross eggs thousands of miles from their low-lying home on Midway Atoll in the North Pacific to a Mexican island t...

Organ transplantation has long been seen as a miracle of modern medicine but each year thousands of people across the world die while waiting for this life-saving operation. We’ll find out how one medical technology company based in the UK is cutting wait times for liver transplants after inventing a machine which simulates the human body. We’ll also visit South Africa which has one of the lowest...

Thousands of people in Sierra Leone lost limbs during the brutal civil war, and many more have struggled to overcome the mental as well as physical burdens of the conflict. We visit the Farming on Crutches programme where amputees are trained in agricultural skills which they can use to start their own farms and teach others in their communities their skills. Plus how former addicts are helping ot...

Many cities are becoming unpleasant to live in: they are getting hotter due to climate change and all the heat absorbed by the streets and buildings. But Stuttgart in Germany has been tackling this by carefully studying local wind patterns. Using the natural airflow they are cooling the city by creating corridors of wind from the surrounding hills. It’s an idea which is being copied by cities arou...

The US state of Alaska may be known for its rugged wilderness, but it’s also quietly leading a green revolution. We explore how an island community is powering itself through a locally built and managed microgrid - cutting out fossil fuels and slashing energy costs. And we find out how scientists are using native mushrooms to produce sustainable building insulation and cold fish storage boxes that...

A unique community in Chester in northern England, brings multiple generations together to encourage learning and connection. We explore how young children in the onsite nursery benefit from the time, attention and vocabulary skills offered by the older adults. Meanwhile the retirement home residents can benefit from increased social activity and a sense of purpose. We also speak to an intergenera...

In some places, the nearest safe operating room can be hours or even days away. We find out about a portable operating theatre called SurgiBox that fits in a backpack and inflates in minutes, creating a safe surgical environment for operations almost anywhere. We meet the co-founder of the start-up behind it and see it put to the test, and speak to a surgeon who has used it to save lives far from...

In one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Mumbai, a quiet transformation is underway. Govandi has long been associated with poverty and poor health outcomes. But with the help of a civic organisation, the community has built vibrant spaces with children and women in mind— libraries, workshops, and leisure zones—defying the norms of city planning that can overlook such needs. We explore how trust, pe...

Play is essential to children’s development – kids learn about themselves and the world around them by having fun and taking risks. In some countries scientists have linked a decline in free play with a rise in children’s mental health problems. In this programme we visit a playground called “the land” where no parents are allowed in! This highly-regarded project in Wales now supports adults too,...

A new farming method is having a dramatic effect on maize crops in Malawi. And assistance is coming from a solar-powered tractor. In the last of her visits to Malawi, Myra goes to a village where they are using a new method called Deep Bed Farming. It’s more than doubled the yield of some of the farmers and improved their standards of living. The method involves digging deep into the hard earth. T...

In India, how can gorgeous flowers offered in a temple or gathered to decorate a wedding be an environmental problem? Chhavi Sachdev discovers that the practice of disposing of the spent flowers, thousands of tonnes of the them daily, into rivers and lakes causes major pollution and literally suffocates waterborne life. The problem is made worse by the fact that the flowers are sprayed with pestic...

Frequent floods blight the poorest neighbourhoods of New Orleans but the residents are fighting back, one yard at a time. Physicist Helen Czerski joins the team behind the Front Yard Initiative as they strive to keep the Big Easy safe and dry, 20 years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. When Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, the levees broke, 800,000 residents were forced out and 18...

British Sikh engineer, Navjot Sawhney gave up his lucrative career to go and work in India, to use his skills to help solve problems for rural communities. While there, he became fascinated with the problems his neighbour, Divya, was facing while handwashing clothes, sometimes for up to three hours a day. Broadcaster and journalist Nkem Ifejika finds out how Nav promised to design a hand crank, of...

Communication is a human right - but what happens when someone can’t speak for themselves? Sean Allsop struggled to talk until he was eight years old, when he began to speak thanks to years of speech therapy. He explores the technologies and innovations helping people around the world who struggle to communicate. We meet Richard Cave, National Advisor at the Royal College of Speech and Language Th...

What if reimagining how cities are designed could make women safer? In Cairo, sexual harassment and violence against women on the streets has been endemic. Women don't feel safe enough to walk or take public transport. A pioneering programme called Safer Cities, is hoping to find the solution through radical urban redesigns, women friendly spaces and raising awareness about sexual harassment. Salm...

From powering cars to feeding farm animals, how using seaweed more can help the planet. We hear how a local business in Barbados is using sargassum seaweed to power cars, providing an eco-friendly alternative for islanders and potentially helping to clear the beaches of smelly seaweed. Also we visit the European company aiming to replace single-use plastics with seaweed-based packaging. And how fe...