“The silent miracle of human progress is too slow and too fragmented to ever qualify as news.” So wrote Hans Rosling in his posthumously released book Factfulness, extracts from which we published this year. As journalists, it’s easy for us to miss the small and scattered efforts of individuals and groups, but it’s those incremental efforts that so often point the way ahead to major changes.
This week we bring you some of those stories from around the world.
In recent years, a new generation of leaders has emerged from the Dalit community, the lowest caste in Indian society, who are driving an assertive new political movement. In a rural village in Uttar Pradesh, Sunaina Kumar visited a unique project that’s instilling pride in Dalit cultural heritage among young people.
After hearing one too many stories of harassment at nightclubs and concerts, Tanille Geib decided to take matters into her own hands. Ashifa Kassam spoke to Geib about her new job as a “consent captain” in the Canadian city of Victoria.
As Oxford’s academic institutions face growing pressure to admit a more diverse range of students, one college there is already breaking down barriers. Richard Adams found out what sets Wadham College apart.
In Mogadishu there is tentative hope that the pace of reconstruction after decades of civil war can continue to improve. Stephen Buranyi met the young Somalis digitally recreating the city’s architectural wonders of the past in the hope of shaping its future.
What we liked:
This Washington Post piece about “a modern-day Noah’s ark transporting animals back to places where they’ve been wiped out”.
Also, you have until 5 June to vote in the 2018 Transformative Cities award, a project highlighting several examples of “inspiring transformation at local level in the areas of water, energy and housing”.
What we heard:
The problem of copper theft from railways and electricity companies has been largely solved by chemical fingerprinting. Small amounts of other elements are added to the copper … which identify the source. Plastics manufacturers could be required to do the same, so when plastic rubbish turns up in the environment, the cost of cleaning up could be passed back to the identified manufacturer.
Bill, who contacted us by email at theupside@theguardian.com
Where was the upside?
In a secret location in a Northamptonshire forest, where the chequered skipper butterfly was reintroduced to England after a 42-year absence as part of an effort to revive 20 endangered species.
