People Fixing the World

"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. 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)

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. 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)

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

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.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)

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. 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

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. 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)

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

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. 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)

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. 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)

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.