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 SOLAx Timestamps: 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 Thoughts About 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-Rose Produced by Fix The News Audio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That!  This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

This week's headlines include – the surprising marine life moving into offshore wind farms; a major biodiversity win in Papua New Guinea; the simple digital fix transforming healthcare in Bangladesh; a possible end to a 40-year conflict in Türkiye; free public transport in Porto; global emissions showing signs of flattening; and a Sydney scientist making space dust in a bottle. You can check out the full newsletter edition here. This podcast is brought to you by ⁠Fix The News⁠. Hosted by Anthony Badolato, ⁠Hear That!⁠ If you want to get in touch with the team, email amy@fixthenews.com

We figured out that women and men were equal thousands of years ago. So why did it take so long for the world to catch up? Arguments for gender equality stretch back at least 2,300 years. Plato imagined men and women ruling together. And yet, again and again, the idea surfaced, stalled, disappeared and returned. In this episode of A Short History of Saving the World, Angus Hervey and historian Ada Palmer take the long view of gender equality: from ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe to the suffragettes, feminism and the unfinished work of progress today. Along the way, they arrive at the bigger question - do we really believe that all people are equal? Because perhaps the hardest part of equality isn't changing the law. It's changing our minds. In this conversation:Why can an idea win centuries before the world actually changes?Did women have a Renaissance?Why does progress so often provoke a backlash?Have we mistaken the first 10% of gender equality for 90%?And what happens if we decide feminism has already won?Timestamps: 1:06 The Quarrel: 2,300 Years of Gender Equality 2:36 Why Good Ideas Take Centuries 7:39 Equality is never a Straight Line 8:48 There Is No Single History of Women 10:27 The Papal Hostess 13:48 Progress, But for Whom? 16:17 Do Bodies Define Gender Roles? 22:01 The World’s First Bestseller 26:17 The Iceberg Problem 28:00 Why Progress Creates Backlash 29:29 How Ada Genders Her Characters 31:17 How Early Does Gender Bias Begin? 33:18 A Future Without Gender? 37:33 Category: Cage or Crowbar? 40:29 The Wounds We Inherit 43:06 Most Underrated and Overrated Milestones in the History of Gender Equality 56.17: Do We Really Believe that People Are Equal? 53:46: Footnotes of A Short History 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 Ada Palmer Produced by Amy Davoren-Rose, Fix The News Audio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That!

The story of farming has always been one of adaptation. The next chapter may be its most one important yet. In this special episode of Fix The News, we bring together two conversations exploring one of the defining questions of our time: how do we feed a growing world without destroying the planet that we depend on? Meet Professor Rattan Lal, one of the world's leading soil scientists and a World Food Prize laureate, whose life's work has transformed our understanding of the living world beneath our feet. Then meet Alesha Miller, Chief Strategy Officer at Digital Green, who's helping smallholder farmers across Africa and Asia combine generations of local knowledge with artificial intelligence to build more resilient food systems. Together, they help us unpack that that the future of agriculture isn't about choosing between nature and technology, tradition and innovation, or human and artificial intelligence. It's about strengthening both.  In this episode:Why healthy soil is the foundation of healthy food systemsHow our lifestyle choices today will help shape the futureThe importance of the world's 500 million smallholder farmersHow AI can amplify rather than replace human knowledgeWhy trust matters as much as technologyWhy the future of farming may depend on combining old wisdom with new ideas Timestamps: 00:13 The most common occupation on earth03:45 Meet Professor Rattan Lal04:54 Why soil is a living entity08:37 What does Regenerative Agriculture actually mean?12:05 The Law of Return20:53 Midpoint Reflections22:47 Meet Alesha Miller25:47 What is Digital Green?30:14 Can weather predictions save AI?37:21 Technology and Trust43:04 Closing Reflections: Choose Both Dig Deeper:👉Professor Rattan Lal 👉 Digital Green About 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-Rose Produced by Fix The News Audio production: Anthony Badolato, Hear That!  This episode was produced in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Wurrung peoples.

This week's headlines include – HIV reaches its lowest levels in more than 30 years; Indonesia's remarkable transformation from aid recipient to donor; two major clean energy milestones in Germany and California; seven new UNESCO World Heritage sites; fast fashion reforms in Europe; Canva's record cash transfer in Malawi and a happy update on China's famous wandering elephants. You can check out the full newsletter edition here. This podcast is brought to you by ⁠Fix The News⁠. Hosted by Anthony Badolato, ⁠Hear That!⁠ If you want to get in touch with the team, email amy@fixthenews.com