Stan Brock learned what being far from medical care really meant after a horse badly injured him in the wilderness of what was then British Guiana. He was working on Dadanawa Ranch, surrounded by thousands of square miles of savannah and rainforest, where horses, cattle, bush planes, and long distances were part of daily life. When he was hurt, the nearest doctor was roughly 26 days away on foot.
In 1919, Eglantyne Jebb stood in Trafalgar Square holding photographs most people did not want to see. The children in them were thin, hungry and trapped in the wreckage of the First World War, some living in countries Britain had just spent four years fighting.
In 1960, a laborer named Dashrath Manjhi picked up a hammer and chisel and began breaking apart a mountain near his village in Bihar, India. He had no construction equipment, no money to hire workers and no experience building roads. But he had decided that the mountain needed an opening, and he was going to … Read more
Kennedy Odede worked ten-hour shifts in a factory in Kenya, earning about a dollar a day. Somehow, he managed to save twenty cents from that tiny wage. He used the money to buy a soccer ball. He took it back to Kibera, the neighborhood in Nairobi where he had grown up. Other young people came … Read more
During World War II, Irena Sendler was working as a social worker in Warsaw, Poland, when Nazi Germany forced the city’s Jewish population into a sealed ghetto. Her job gave her access to places most people couldn’t enter. She used that opportunity to bring food, money and medical supplies to Jewish families struggling to survive … Read more
When Maggie Doyne finished high school in New Jersey, she decided to take a year off and travel. She was 18, had about $5,000 saved from babysitting, and wanted to see more of the world before deciding what to do next. During her travels, she reached Nepal, a country recovering from years of civil war. … Read more
In 1995, an 87-year-old woman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, sat down with a bank officer to decide what she wanted to do with her life savings. Her name was Oseola McCarty, and she had earned nearly every dollar washing and ironing other people’s clothes. She had never finished elementary school, never held a high-paying job, and … Read more
William Kamkwamba was just 14 years old when his family could no longer afford to send him to school. Malawi was suffering through a devastating famine, his family was struggling to find enough food, and paying school fees had become impossible. Instead of attending classes, William spent his days helping his family and looking for … Read more
During his final year of high school, Everette Taylor was sleeping in a car that didn’t even run. He was still trying to finish school in Richmond, Virginia, but he didn’t have a reliable place to live. When he needed somewhere safe to spend time, he often went to the Broad Rock Branch Library. There, … Read more
In 1998, Microsoft executive John Wood was hiking through Nepal when a local headmaster invited him to visit his school. Wood accepted, expecting a brief look around before continuing his trek through the Himalayas. What he found stayed with him long after the trip ended. The school had approximately 450 students, but its library was … Read more
At around 9:30 in the evening, Jorge Muñoz would pull up beneath the elevated train tracks in Jackson Heights, Queens. People were already waiting for his white pickup truck and the home-cooked meals packed inside. Earlier that day, he had been driving a school bus. After finishing his route, he went home and began cooking … Read more