16/04/2009

Human stories from behind the global headlines. With Lucy Ash.

On today's programme: Sorious Samura; Native Americans - pt 4; and the US veteran seeking refuge in Germany.

Sorious Samura
In northern Ghana if a child cannot walk properly, cries too much or was simply born on the wrong day, he or she might be labelled a Spirit Child with potentially fatal consequences.
Spirit Children are thought to be evil spirits. Their fate is decided by their parents, the soothsayers and the concoction men who often become their executioners.
Outlook talks to the award winning Sierra Leonean journalist Sorious Samura who has just made a documentary about this chilling phenomenon.

Native American Languages
There used to be up to 600 Native American languages and now only 20 are spoken by people of all ages.
To halt this decline, a local school in Santa Fe, New Mexico is using radio and sites like FaceBook and YouTube to teach young people their mother tongue. Surprisingly it's run by a Korean woman who believes the survival of indigenous languages is more than a question of culture - she sees it as key to social justice. Outlook's reporter Siobhann Tighe talks to her to find out more.

Andre Shepherd
A year ago US Iraq veteran Andre Shepherd deserted the army by walking off his base in Germany in the middle of the night. He was due to be sent back to Iraq but said he refused to go because he could no longer be part of what he saw as an illegal war. For many that was shocking enough. But now he is causing even more of a stir by becoming the first soldier to ask the German government to let him stay as a political refugee. The BBC's Damien McGuinness went to meet Andre Shepherd in the southern German town of Freiburg.