As a child, Ameera Ahmad Harouda wanted to be the first female Palestinian fighter pilot, but as an adult she became a pioneer in the news field instead; starting work as Gaza's first female news fixer in 2005. Ameera's work begins when the violence escalates, and she's now the 'go to' person for many international journalists who need to hire a fixer to help them get into Gaza and gain access to stories and people. Al Jazeera camera woman Alina Gracheva grew up in the former Soviet state of Moldova. She's covered some of the biggest news stories in recent history - the war in Chechnya, the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, but it was the Beslan school siege in 2004, that had the biggest effect on her. Alina says that instead of focussing on the bombs and bullets, camera women can give a different perspective, "they are more likely to notice a mother in the corner, or a child with dirty fingers". [Picture: Ameera Ahmad Harouda (Left) and Alina Gracheva (Right)]

Subadhra Devi Rai started her nursing career in a busy intensive care unit of a hospital in Singapore. She has also dedicated her life to working with those in desperate need in countries where her skills are in short supply, including Thailand, Nigeria and Laos. Subadhra, who's now a senior lecturer in health studies, recently won the Florence Nightingale International Foundation's International Achievement Award. Rose Kiwanuka isn't saving lives but helping patients as they die, she was Uganda's first palliative care nurse in the early 1990s. Rose, who is the national coordinator of the Palliative Care Association, has the momentous task of making patients and their families, in urban and rural communities, as comfortable as possible about death.(L) Rose Kiwanuka, Palliative Care Nurse, Uganda. Picture Credit: Alan Hofmanis (R) Subadhra Devi Rai, Nurse, Singapore. Picture credit: Nanyang Polytechnic

'You can never tell what type of person is getting into your car' says Iris Javed who has been driving a taxi in New York City for over twenty-two years, 'and once they're in your car you have to deal with it'. Iris, who drove an 18-wheel truck before scaling down to a taxi, has had her fair share of drunk and troublesome passengers - and even one who got into her car completely naked. Karin Holmström has been driving a taxi in Stockholm for twenty years. She says driving is only a tiny part of the job - 'you more or less have to be a mother, a priest and a psychologist'. She's doled out relationship advice and consoled the lonely and although she welcomes all kinds of passengers, Karin has one hard and fast rule about fast food - 'they will never eat hamburgers and hotdogs in my car. I'm not a restaurant!'(Picture: Iris Javed (Left) and Karin Holmström (Right - Credit: Stockholm Taxis)

Cori Schumacher was surfing before she was born - her mother, also a professional surfer, carried on surfing while she was pregnant. Cori got her first board when she was five and was competing by eight. She quickly came to love the sport and her dedication led her to become a three-time world champion. However, she came to have reservations about aspects of surf culture and the pressure placed on female athletes to be attractive and thin. She now campaigns to raise the status of women's surfing and to make surf culture more inclusive. Ishita Malaviya grew up in Mumbai where there was very little surf culture. Many Indians, she says, have a fear of the sea. Ishita first learnt to surf at university. She and her boyfriend saved up to buy a second-hand board which they shared - one of them would practise in the waves while the other cheered from the beach. Now Ishita has been recognised as India's first female professional surfer. She runs a school where she 'spreads the stoke of surfing' to other Indians. (Photo: (Left) Cori Schumacher. Credit: Maria Cerda. (Right) Ishita Malaviya. Credit: The Shaka Surf Club)

Norma Foster from Scotland discovered karate in her teens when her male friends began taking classes and using Japanese words that were strange to her. She decided to start learning herself but when it came to competitions she found herself the only woman in the room. She wasn't deterred and after spending eight years in Tokyo studying karate she now has a sixth degree black belt. Norma became the first female referee at the World Karate Federation, but her career was not without obstacles: on one occasion a competition was shut down because a member of the referee committee claimed that women were not allowed to judge male athletes. Now she wants to increase the number of women referees at all levels of the sport. Natália Falavigna from Brazil knew she wanted to be an Olympic athlete from the age of four. She tried several sports before finding taekwondo. When her teacher told her he could make her a world champion she realised she'd found what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She enjoys the 'explosive' nature of taekwondo which involves high-energy kicking and spinning, and the challenge of mastering her emotions during a fight. In 2004 she achieved her dream of competing in the Olympics, coming fourth place. Then in 2008 she won bronze at the Summer Olympics, becoming the first Brazilian to win an Olympic medal in taekwondo.Picture: Norma Foster (Right) and Natália Falavigna (Left) Picture credits: Peter Stoddart (Right) /Fausto Roim (Left)

To celebrate the programme's first birthday, Kim Chakanetsa is at Parktown High School for Girls in Johannesburg, bringing 22 students who are in their final year and about to set out into the world, together with two dynamic southern African women who share a passion for connecting people through technology.Khosi Zwane-Siguqa is Head of Content for the communications app WeChat Africa. She dropped out of a law degree to become a community journalist, a move her father was not happy about - but she says she has made him proud by going on to have a stellar career, becoming the youngest ever editor of South Africa's iconic Drum magazine. Her move into tech came recently, and she is now using her story-telling skills to create engaging and relevant content for one of Africa's newest digital platforms. She says her approach to content is all about community, and she is passionate about finding African solutions to African problems through technology.Emma Kaye is founder and CEO of Bozza, an online platform that links local artists and musicians with a global audience, and enables communities to tell their stories from the inside out. A serial entrepreneur, Emma says she and risk have always been good friends - she jumps in, and only does the things she loves. After trail-blazing in South African films and animation, she realised that the next big screen in Africa was going to be the mobile phone, so went into developing apps and content. Frustrated by how few story-tellers were getting exposure, she did something about it, and her platform is now helping 10,000 artists across Africa to be their own boss. The girls about to finish high school share their hopes and ideas for their futures, ask searching questions and seek advice from Khosi and Emma, on how to grow their confidence and achieve their dreams.Picture: Kim Chakanetsa with Emma Kaye, Khosi Zwane-Siguqa and pupils at Parktown High School for Girls, Johannesburg, South Africa

Lyric soprano Danielle de Niese was a star performer at Last Night of the Proms 2015. It was another milestone in this Australian-born American star's glittering career. Growing up, Danielle won various talent and television competitions and debuted at New York's prestigious Metropolitan Opera House when she was 19 years old. She says she knew she wanted to sing opera from the age of eight. Described as "opera's coolest soprano", Danielle is best known for her performances of Handel, Mozart, baroque music, as well as her reality TV shows, including The Diva Diaries.South African soprano Pretty Yende discovered opera by chance. She was 16 years old and watching a television advertisement for an airline, which featured The Flower Duet, from the opera Lakme by Léo Delibes. Pretty fell in love with the sound and instantly wanted to imitate it. She went to be classically trained at Cape Town University and then got a place at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, in Milan. In 2011 Pretty won first prize in Placido Domingo's Operalia competition and two years later she shot to fame when, at short notice, she had to stand in to perform Countess Adele in Rossini's opera, Le Comte Ory. This was Pretty's Metropolitan Opera House debut. (Picture: Opera singers Danielle de Niese (left) and Pretty Yende. Credits: Chris Dunlop/Kim Fox)

Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir grew up on an Icelandic farm that has been in her family for three generations. She has always loved Icelandic goats - a rare and beautiful breed - and when she took over the family farm she decided to concentrate on raising them. Iceland did not have a big market for goat products but Jóhanna slowly built a customer base for her goats milk, cheese, wool and meat. After the country entered a financial crisis in 2008, Jóhanna ended up in danger of having to sell her farm. This would have been a great loss to her, but could have led to extinction for the Icelandic goat as Jóhanna's was the only commercial farm still breeding them. She saved her goats with the help of a crowdfunding website and, to her great surprise, thousands of 'Game of Thrones' fans. Rashida Khan is a cattle producer and animal nutritionist. She runs a stud farm and a cattle station in Northern Australia. Rashida has Afghan and Aboriginal heritage and her family has worked with livestock in the Northern Territory for three generations. When the Australian government banned the export of live cattle to Indonesia following evidence of cruelty in the livestock industry there, Rashida and many like her were affected. She knew that many cattle workers live in remote, isolated places so she turned to social media to offer support to those struggling to adjust after the ban.(Photo: Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir (left). Credit: Audra Mulkern of the Female Farmer Project. (Right) Rashida Khan)

Visaka Dharmadasa is a celebrated Sri Lankan peace activist whose son went missing in action in 1998, while fighting for the Sri Lankan army against Tamil Tiger rebels. She won a landmark case against the government to get DNA checks done to trace missing soldiers and she works with mothers from both sides of the conflict, Tamils and Sinhalese, for a peaceful future. Visaka's work and her belief that her son is still alive keep her sane; she still keeps the chocolates in the freezer, that she bought for him 15 years ago, waiting for his return.Luz Villamil is Colombian Palestinian. Her father was kidnapped by Farc left wing guerrillas in 1998, but released after 81 days. Luz's family's joy was short lived as two years later her brother went missing from a Colombian seaside resort. His disappearance has remained a mystery and they have no clues, only rumour and speculation. Luz hopes her brother is hearing the messages her family sends out on a Colombian radio show that features relatives of kidnapped and missing people.Left: Luz Villamil, Credit: Angelika Bakou Right: Visaka Dharmadasa. Credit: None

Sangduen 'Lek' Chailert comes from the small hill tribe village of Baan Lao in northern Thailand. At a young age she heard the screams of an elephant that was being forced to work in terrible conditions for the logging industry. Lek felt compelled to help it. Although she had no training she bought some medicine and soon she was being called upon to treat other local elephants. She later formed the Save Elephant Foundation to advocate for the rights of these animals in Thailand and the Elephant Nature Park, a protected area where rescued elephants receive protection and form new herds. Lek says that rebuilding an elephant's trust in humans can be a challenge - 'they never forget' - but she's found a novel technique: singing them lullabies. Saba Douglas-Hamilton was born in Kenya where her father worked as a prominent elephant conservationist. In fact she says she was 'baptised in elephant's breath' as her mother introduced her to wild elephants when she was a baby. Today she works for the charity her family started, Save the Elephants, which researches their behaviour and works with local people to promote human-elephant co-existence. She once feared for her life when she woke in the night to find a wild bull elephant towering over her mattress. Unperturbed by this, she says 'I find elephants endlessly fascinating…We recognise in them, and they recognise in us, a parallel intelligence'. (L) Saba Douglas-Hamilton. Credit: Sam Gracey (R) Sangduen 'Lek' Chailert. Credit: Save Elephant Foundation