Fix The News

What happens when the systems we've relied on stop working? And who gets to decide what comes next?A year after the dismantling of USAID sent shockwaves through the international aid sector, the world's leaders, philanthropists and changemakers gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week. The funding crisis was far from over, and the big questions about what comes next remained unanswered.Amy spent a week in New York talking to people who weren't waiting for the old systems to be fixed. From former aid workers building a lifeboat for abandoned programmes to a dating app helping tackle HIV, she discovered some unexpected ways of doing things differently.In this episode, Amy and Gus unpack five conversations from New York and ask whether the messy middle might be exactly where new possibilities begin.In this episode:The Lifeboat Crew: How Rob Rosenbaum and a group of former USAID workers helped redirect more than $170 million towards programmes at risk of closure.Grindr's unexpected mission: CEO George Arison on using a global dating app to help millions of people access HIV prevention.A billion people in ten years: Felix Brooks-Church on Sanku's extraordinary growth and a business model designed to solve hidden hunger.Rethinking philanthropy: Judith Lingeman from the Postcode Lottery Group on the power of trust, unrestricted funding and giving organisations room to dream.A world without single-use plastic: Nicky Davies from the Plastic Solutions Fund on bringing 35 foundations together, changing the systems behind plastic pollution and why cities could lead the way.Five very different conversations that all ask the same question: what becomes possible when we stop assuming the way we've always done things is the only way?Timestamps:00:45 Introduction - Amy & Gus03:45 Rob Rosenbaum, Project Resource Optimization13:36 George Arison, Grindr19:39 Felix Brooks-Church, Sanku25:52 Judith Lingeman, Postcode Lottery Group32:49 Nicky Davies, Plastic Solutions Fund42:39 Closing Reflections - Amy & GusFind out more:👉 Project Resource Optimization👉 Grindr👉 Sanku👉 Postcode Lottery Group👉 Plastic Solutions FundAbout Fix The News:Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.Subscribe & follow:If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and leave a review - it helps more people find these stories.Production credits:Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-RoseProduced by Fix The NewsAudio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That! This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

How do you get the world to pay attention to a problem it thinks it's already solved?Around a billion children are exposed to dangerous levels of lead. It can be hiding in cookware, spices and cosmetics, or released through industries like battery recycling. For a child, exposure can mean losing up to six IQ points - irreversible damage that, multiplied across hundreds of millions of children, becomes an enormous drain on human potential. And yet, unlike so many global challenges, we already know how to prevent it.Meet Drew McCartor, President of Pure Earth. For the past 17 years, Drew and his colleagues have been sounding the alarm about lead poisoning: gathering evidence, understanding the scale of the problem and building the playbook for how to solve it. Now, after decades of “yelling into the void”, the world is finally paying attention - and Drew believes we have an opportunity to eliminate lead poisoning altogether.In this episode:Why around a billion children are exposed to dangerous levels of leadThe surprising places lead is still hiding - from cookware to spicesWhat losing four to six IQ points means for a child - and an entire countryHow a Craigslist ad led Drew from unpaid intern to President of Pure EarthWhy Pure Earth spent years wondering if they were crazyThe young boy in Bangladesh who brought the human cost of lead poisoning home for DrewWhat changed when the world finally started paying attentionWhy Drew believes we can eliminate lead poisoning altogetherAbout the title: A Useful Truth comes from a 1786 letter by Benjamin Franklin about lead poisoning: “You will observe with concern how long a useful truth may be known and exist before it's generally received and practiced upon.” Almost 250 years later, it feels remarkably apt.Timestamps:00:00 A Useful Truth00:55 Do you ever feel like something is wrong but no one will listen?03:20 Haven’t we already solved lead poisoning?05:00 What does lead poisoning actually mean?07:43 The curse of the Industrial Fairy10:20 What’s harder: solving lead poisoning or convincing people it matters?12:31 From Craigslist ad to President of Pure Earth14:50 How do a group of hippies change the world?17:36 Midpoint reflections20:09 When the world finally started paying attention22:57 What happens when you get the thing you’ve spent 17 years working towards?25:07 Lead and the global funding crisis29:06 The story that makes lead poisoning real33:58 The solutions are already here34:46 What happens if we raise the IQ of a billion children?39:01 What’s possible if we solve lead poisoning?44.59 Final ThoughtsCurious to find out more?👉Check out the Pure Earth website👉Support their work👉 Listen to Drew's TED Talk👉 The Pure Earth SCALE Initiative to protect 500 million children from lead exposureAbout Fix The News:Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.Subscribe & follow:If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and leave a review - it helps more people find these stories.Production credits:Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-RoseProduced by Fix The NewsAudio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That! This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

What if we could catch the next pandemic before it starts?For most of human history, we’ve discovered outbreaks after people start getting sick. But what if we could spot a dangerous virus as it emerges, track it as it spreads and give health workers the information they need to stop it - in real time?Meet Dr Pardis Sabeti, geneticist, disease hunter and professor at Harvard University. Pardis has spent more than two decades on the frontlines of some of the world’s deadliest outbreaks, from Lassa fever and Ebola in West Africa to COVID-19. Now, through Sentinel, she and her team are trying to build something even more ambitious: an early-warning system for infectious disease that can work anywhere - including communities across Africa where laboratory resources are limited and outbreaks can easily go undetected.From why many “emerging” diseases may actually be diseases we simply haven’t detected to the devastating consequences of global health funding cuts - this is a conversation about how close we are to changing our relationship with infectious disease, and what it will take to stop the next outbreak before it becomes a pandemic.In this episode:How Pardis and her team tracked Ebola as it spread through West AfricaWhy many “emerging” diseases may already be circulatingHow Sentinel is building an early-warning system for outbreaksWhat Rwanda got right with MarburgWhat global health funding cuts look like on the ground and in the labWhy stopping the next pandemic will take more than technologyWhy Pardis still believes we can build a world where outbreaks are stopped before they become pandemicsTimestamps:00:00 The Disease Hunter00:42 If Pandemics Keep You Up at Night02:51 Inside the 2014 Ebola Outbreak03:38 The More You Test, the More You Find04:39 Building an Early-Warning System for Disease07:05 Are Diseases Emerging - or Are We Finally Detecting Them?08:48 How Did Pardis Know COVID Was Coming?10:36 Is Another Pandemic Inevitable?11:43 What Well-Timed Funding Makes Possible13:52 Why Every Person Matters in a Pandemic15:26 How Rwanda Stopped Marburg16:35 Why Ebola Is So Hard to Stop in the DRC18:26 Midpoint Reflections19:29 What Global Health Funding Cuts Look Like on the Ground21:39 Laying Off a Third of Her Team23:52 “Philanthropic Survivor’s Guilt”26:59 How Do You Take On a Trillion-Dollar Problem?29:08 Why Technology Alone Won’t Stop the Next Pandemic31:57 “I’m a Student of Humanity”34:03 The Work You Don’t Get to FinishFind Out More:👉 Explore Sentinel👉 Learn more about Pardis Sabeti and the Sabeti Lab👉 Discover The Audacious Project at TED👉 Read about Sentinel’s $100 million MacArthur 100&Change awardAbout Fix The News:Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.Subscribe & follow:If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and leave a review - it helps more people find these stories.Production credits:Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-RoseProduced by Fix The NewsAudio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That! This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

What if the knowledge we need most for the future is something we’ve spent centuries forgetting?Meet Victor Steffensen, Tagalaka man, author, filmmaker, musician and co-founder of the Living Knowledge Network. For decades, Victor has worked with Indigenous communities in Australia and around the world to revive traditional ways of reading and caring for Country. His new book, The Knowledge, asks a much bigger question: what have we lost by separating ourselves from the natural world - and what might happen if we learned how to listen again?From why the climate crisis may actually be an identity crisis to how Western science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems can work together and the deceptively simple idea that everything we create should help nature flourish - this is a conversation about Indigenous knowledge as you might never have heard it before. Not as something that belongs to a select few, but as the wisdom that underpins us all.In this episode:Why Victor believes we’re all Indigenous to the planetWhy he thinks the climate crisis is, at its heart, an identity crisisWhat happens when a landscape loses its identity and how you bring it backHow ancient knowledge and modern science can strengthen each otherThe possibilities of reviving cultural memory and practiceAnd why, instead of arguing about who created the mess we're in, it’s time to get on with cleaning it upTimestamps:00:50 Introduction to Victor Steffensen05:21 Why Indigenous Knowledge is for everyone09:17 The moment that sparked 'The Knowledge' for Victor13:00 Indigenous Knowledge v Western Science17:32 What Victor has learned from apply the Knowledge in different countries20:06 Midpoint Reflections22:40 The Knowledge Triangle24:41 The Identity Crisis31:21 What does this actually look like?34:47 The job of cleaning up the mess41:32 Final ReflectionsWant to know more about The Knowledge?👉 Read Victor's new book, The Knowledge(Available online & at all good bookstores) 👉 Explore the Living Knowledge Network👉 Follow the team's work: Instagram. LinkedIn. Facebook. Video. Image Credit: Harry Vincent - Living Knowledge NetworkAbout Fix The News:Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.Subscribe & follow:If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and leave a review - it helps more people find these stories.Production credits:Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-RoseProduced by Fix The NewsAudio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That! This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

Five years ago, the Taliban banned girls from the classroom. One school refused to stop teaching. In August 2021, as the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, the staff and students of SOLA, the country’s first and only boarding school for Afghan girls, managed to escape to Rwanda, where they established a temporary campus to continue classes.   Meet Shabana Basij-Rasikh, co-founder of SOLA, and our very first guest on this podcast when we launched in 2023. Five years since the Taliban takeover, Shabana returns to reflect on what has happened since: from Afghan women running secret schools and girls rationing internet data to keep learning to what has become of SOLA’s first cohort and what it means to create a place where Afghan girls have the freedom to simply be  “girls who go to school.” In this episode:Why Afghan women are continuing a generations-long tradition of secret schoolsHow the internet has become a lifeline for girls and women inside AfghanistanWhat happened to the first cohort of SOLA girls How SOLA built a permanent new home for Afghan girls in RwandaThe importance of giving girls the safety to be normal teenagersWhat five years of exile, education and resistance can teach us Why Shabana’s message to the world is simple: “Don’t look away.”Help keep the doors open for Afghan girls:👉 Learn more about SOLA👉 Donate to SOLA👉 Explore SOLAxTimestamps:00:54 Introducing the School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA)03:10 What hope means to Shabana Basij-Rasikh05:07 The legacy of Afghan women and eduction08:43 Why the internet is a lifeline for Afghan women and girls13:10 SOLAx - the online school18:04 An update on the students of SOLA21:45 Midpoint Reflections23:17 SOLA has finished construction on a permanent campus in Rwanda27:43 The power of partnerships29:50 The relationship between SOLA and Rwanda32:18 What the students of SOLA have taught Shabana35:40 How the story of SOLA expands what's possible38:31 Final ThoughtsAbout Fix The News:Fix The News is a solutions-focused media platform sharing stories from the frontlines of progress - exploring what’s working in the world and the people making it happen.Subscribe & follow:If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and leave a review - it helps more people find these stories.Production credits:Hosted by Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-RoseProduced by Fix The NewsAudio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That! This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.