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Episode details

World Service,04 Dec 2017,53 mins

How my Brother's Accident Saved Lives

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Available for over a year

Growing up in rural Guatemala, Marco Tulio Guerra was accustomed to people cooking using open-fire stoves. It's dangerous because of both smoke inhalation and the flames. But it was when his younger brother was in a horrible accident, that Marco decided to do something about the health hazards of the fires. He's designed a stove, which is safer for the billions of people who cook using this method. Dagny Carlsson is a Swedish blogger and she's 105 years old. Dagny's posts about her daily life and memories have attracted a million readers. Canadian Rupi Kaur is one of the most successful poets in recent history. The Indian-born writer is known for tackling issues of sexual abuse and racism. Many of her readers come from Instagram. The social media platform brought her to the wider world's attention after she published a controversial photo a couple of years ago. Ever since he was a boy in Saudi Arabia, Arnab Chanda had dreamt of becoming an actor. In his twenties, he got into stand up comedy, and performed in the United States and Britain. But, while still a young man, he very suddenly lost all his hair. In fact, Arnab has alopecia. He feared that his dreams of becoming an actor were over, but a journey of self-discovery helped him reconcile with his condition. (Picture: Marco Tulio Guerra with one of his stoves. Photo credit: M T Guerra.)

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