Somaliland, a region of Somalia that lay in ruin from years of war, suffers some of the world’s highest rates of infant and maternal mortality. But 15 years ago, Edna Adan fulfilled a lifelong dream by building a nonprofit hospital and nursing school to address the health needs of women. In this episode, we hear […]
Podcast: Under-Told: Verbatim
Welcome to Under-Told: Verbatim, an Under-Told Stories Project Podcast.
We report from all over the world for PBS NewsHour on the consequences of poverty and the work of change agents addressing them. We’ve done extended interviews with hundreds of experts and people making a difference in their communities. In this podcast we’re revisiting those under-told stories so you can hear changemakers around the world in their own words. This is Under-Told: Verbatim.
The Dalai Lama’s Doctor
The Monk Doctor: 72, shaved bald and draped in flowing maroon robes, Barry Kerzin gently presses his stethoscope to the neck of an elderly Tibetan man. He’s just as gentle with this patient as he is with a much more famous one: his holiness the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan spiritual leader now calls Kerzin, a […]
Zola Nene’s Post-Apartheid Kitchen
In 1994, Nelson Mandela’s election marked the end of apartheid and the beginning of democracy in South Africa. But the scars of racial segregation haven’t healed yet. Infrastructure designed for 5 million white South Africans has failed to support the majority black population of over 56 million power outages and water shortages are a part […]
The Leftover Landmines
Rebecca Letven is the Cambodia country director for the UK based Mines Advisory Group, or MAG, a non-governmental organization that works to clear explosives and return land to communities. These deadly remnants of the Cambodian civil war were planted in the late 1960s and early 70s by both the genocidal Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian […]
The Sioux Chef’s Seat at the Table
While training as a chef, Sean Sherman learned French, Italian and other western styles of cooking, but he had no way of knowing what his ancestors ate. So he decided to find out himself. His cookbook, “The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen,” won a James Beard award in 2018. Today, he and his partner Dana Thompson […]
Jimmy Carter’s Post-Presidential Legacy
Jimmy Carter was President of the United States from 1977 to 1981, but he dove into humanitarian work as soon as his term was over. He’s worked to eradicate neglected tropical diseases and mediate age-old conflicts around the world including Sudan and South Sudan–two nations carved out of one after a bitter war that Carter […]
Cambodia’s Orphans pt. 2: Pastor Ted Olbrich
In 2005 there were about 150 orphanages in Cambodia, but that number grew to more than 400 in 2019. But an estimated 80 percent of kids in Cambodia’s orphanages aren’t actually orphans. Evangelical Pastor Ted Olbrich runs one of the largest providers of orphan care in Cambodia. Foursquare Children of Promise is an explicitly Christian […]
Read More… from Cambodia’s Orphans pt. 2: Pastor Ted Olbrich
Cambodia’s Orphans pt. 1: Sebastien Marot
In 2005 there were about 150 orphanages in Cambodia, but that number grew to more than 400 in 2019. But an estimated 80 percent of kids in Cambodia’s orphanages aren’t actually orphans. Sebastien Marot’s Friends International social enterprise is working with the larger campaign to remove children from orphan care. In a courtyard near a busy […]