People Fixing the World BBC World Service

If you could invent a new kind of school what would it look like? What skills would you teach children, and how would the school be run?
On this edition of People Fixing The World we visit the Mechai Pattana School in Thailand which was founded by the campaigner Mechai Viravaidya in 2008, on principals of charity and leadership. Children are responsible for every aspect of running the school, from buying food for the kitchens to disciplining fellow students and even recruiting new staff.
The children also run their own businesses, and perform several hours of community service every week. Many of the students come from underprivileged backgrounds, but their school fees are “paid” by planting 800 trees a year, together with their families.
The idea is for the school to produce “change-makers” – could it be a model for others to follow?
Presenter: Myra Anubi
Producer/reporter: William Kremer
Series Producer: Jon Bithrey
Editor: Tom Bigwood
Sound mix: Annie Gardiner

Across the world millions of women and girls face discrimination and worse because of their gender. On this edition of People Fixing The World we look at projects designed to change attitudes. In India we visit workshops aimed at recruiting younger men as allies in the fight against sexism and gender inequality. And we speak to the founder of Chalk Back, a street art initiative that encourages women to write sexist remarks they’ve been the target of onto pavements in chalk to highlight the problem of street harassment.
Presenter: Myra Anubi
Reporter: Chhavi Sachdev
Series Producer: Jon Bithrey
Editor: Tom Bigwood
Sound mix: Hal Haines

Often described as underwater rainforests and the “lungs of the ocean”, kelp forests line as much as 25% of the world’s coastlines. They provide important shelter and food for fish and other marine life, and are vital for our oceans’ ecosystems. However kelp is under severe threat because of climate change, warming seas and overfishing. We look at projects in California aimed at stemming the decline of kelp including how scientists are growing it in a laboratory to be planted at sea as well as tackling a key cause of kelp degradation - sea urchins.
Presenter: Myra Anubi
Producer/reporter: Craig Langran
Series Producer: Jon Bithrey
Editor: Tom Bigwood
Sound mix: Frank McWeeny

Premature babies often need a lot of expensive specialised care - but that isn’t always available. So, doctors in Colombia are teaching mothers to look after their babies in a similar way that kangaroos look after their own young.
It’s called "kangaroo mother care" and instead of being in an incubator, babies are wrapped tightly against their mother’s skin.
The technique was developed in Bogota in the late 1970s as a response to overcrowding in hospital maternity units. There weren't enough incubators and around 70% of premature babies didn’t survive.
Doctors started using this simple skin-to-skin method. They found it wasn't only saving babies but was also helping them to thrive. Now, kangaroo care has spread around the world.
Presenter: Myra Anubi
Reporter: Zoe Gelber
Series producer: Tom Colls
Sound mix: Hal Haines
Editor: Richard Vadon
Email: peoplefixingtheworld@bbc.co.uk
Image: A baby in the kangaroo position

The fashion industry is the third largest manufacturing industry in the world consuming huge amounts of the world’s resources and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. But some innovators are trying to make the industry more sustainable. We discover how old fire hoses in the UK have been diverted from landfill and turned into fashionable bags and accessories. Plus we visit Mongolia to find out about a new luxury material made from yak hair. It's an eco-friendly replacement for cashmere which comes from goats who are causing desertification. Presenter: Myra Anubi Producer/reporter: Claire Bowes Executive Producer: Richard Kenny Series Producer: Jon Bithrey Editor: Tom Bigwood Sound Mix: Andrew Mills

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 to an army of volunteer teachers using a method developed in prison.
Presenter: Myra Anubi
Reporter/producer: Claire Bates
Series producer: Jon Bithrey
Editor: Tom Bigwood
Sound mix: Andrew Mills
(Image: Jahura Begum, Shabnur Akhter, Rashida Begum at Friendship class in Bangladesh, Friendship)