Featurettes

A quick round-up of some of the stories I've covered this year. Feedback would be very welcome!

Twitter: @mllenicolakelly

Young Syrians arriving in the UK are in limbo. They're not allowed to work or return to education until they hear about the outcome of their asylum application.

This is a piece I did for BBC Radio 1's 'Newsbeat', field produced and reported from Glasgow.

BBC World Service: From Syria to Scotland by

In the Taita Hills of south-east Kenya, honey hunting has long been a way of life. Now, new technologies are coming in.

Entrepreneurs welcome the changes, citing the potential for foreign exports to the Middle East, Europe and the US. But traditional beekeepers are resistant, convinced that the quality and quantity of the honey will be vastly reduced.

This piece ran across Newsday's daily morning programmes and World Update on 25 November 2016.

In the 'desert badlands' of Kenya's interior close to the border with Somalia, maternal mortality rates are at an all-time high.

Motorbikes are now being offered to traditional birth attendants to encourage them to bring women to health facilities - and to abandon harmful practices passed down through the generations.

This report was for 'Health Check' on the World Service.

In Kenya, Chinese businesses have been investing heavily in recent years, building roads and train lines. The influx of Chinese migrant labour has led to some tensions, with the local population and accusations of 'land grabbing'.

Now these Chinese entrepreneurs are turning to the slum areas around Nairobi, seeking to improve relations with education and outreach programmes.

I went to meet some of those living and working in the Mathare slums to hear their views.

Among the Borena tribe in southern Ethiopia, there are three methods for predicting the future. Communities believe that village elders have the rare ability to read goat's intestines, the stars and the leaves to determine when disease, famine and war will occur.

In Yabelo, I met Dalacha Dabasa, Doyo Huka and Sanou, three village elders known throughout Ethiopia for their accurate predictions.

NB: The sound quality is cringe-worthy. New mics now.

In remote rural Kenya, most hospitals and health centres work off-grid, with frequent power failures. Life support machines go off, babies are born in the dark using the light from mobile phones and medicines go bad in refrigerators.

Solar panels are helping to save lives in these communities, replacing expensive gas cylinders. I went to meet some of the doctors and patients benefiting from this new technology.

From Nepal to Syria. That's the route girls as young as 7 are now taking, exploited by human trafficking networks. Most of the girls were orphaned in last year's earthquake and they are now seeking 'the golden dream': earning a lot of money working in a mansion in the Middle East.

When they arrive in Syria, they are sold to brothels and dance bars, their passports confiscated, unable to return home.

This report ran on Newshour, Newsday, World Update and was pick of the day for the World Service's Global Update podcast.

Senegal, one of the starting points for many migrants on the now well-trodden and ever more life-threatening journey through Libya to Europe, has been hit hard by the outward flow of its bright young things. Aware of the situation, local municipalities have stepped up funding for initiatives like this, a DJ school for aspiring musicians.

I went to meet Amadou and DJ G G Base on the outskirts of Dakar to find out more.