Heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases are the biggest killer in the world, causing 18 million deaths globally every year. Cardiologists and heart surgeons try to manage heart disease with stents, surgery and drugs, but the organ itself does not heal. Finding a way to regenerate heart tissue has become a holy grail for medicine. Now there is new hope from a strange and pioneering technique from Austria. Doctors there believe that applying shockwaves directly to the heart after surgery dramatically improves patient outcomes. The shockwaves – which are sonic pressure waves, rather than electric shocks – lead to new growth of blood vessels and trick the body’s immune system into action. The BBC’s global health correspondent Naomi Grimley travels to Innsbruck to see the treatment in action. Presenter: Myra Anubi
Producer: William Kremer
Series producer: Tom Colls
Sound mix: Hal Haines and Gareth Jones
Editor: Penny Murphy Email: peoplefixingtheworld@bbc.co.uk Image: Heart surgery

Shockwaves for the heart

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Health & Fitness

Often described as underwater rainforests and the “lungs of the ocean”, kelp forests line as much as 25% of the world’s coastlines. They provide important shelter and food for fish and other marine life, and are vital for our oceans’ ecosystems. However kelp is under severe threat because of climate change, warming seas and overfishing. We look at projects in California aimed at stemming the decline of kelp including how scientists are growing it in a laboratory to be planted at sea as well as tackling a key cause of kelp degradation - sea urchins. Presenter: Myra Anubi
Producer/reporter: Craig Langran
Series Producer: Jon Bithrey
Editor: Tom Bigwood
Sound mix: Frank McWeeny

Restoring California's underwater forests

Premature babies often need a lot of expensive specialised care - but that isn’t always available. So, doctors in Colombia are teaching mothers to look after their babies in a similar way that kangaroos look after their own young. It’s called "kangaroo mother care" and instead of being in an incubator, babies are wrapped tightly against their mother’s skin. The technique was developed in Bogota in the late 1970s as a response to overcrowding in hospital maternity units. There weren't enough incubators and around 70% of premature babies didn’t survive. Doctors started using this simple skin-to-skin method. They found it wasn't only saving babies but was also helping them to thrive. Now, kangaroo care has spread around the world. Presenter: Myra Anubi
Reporter: Zoe Gelber
Series producer: Tom Colls
Sound mix: Hal Haines
Editor: Richard Vadon
Email: peoplefixingtheworld@bbc.co.uk
Image: A baby in the kangaroo position

Kangaroo care for premature babies

The fashion industry is the third largest manufacturing industry in the world consuming huge amounts of the world’s resources and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. But some innovators are trying to make the industry more sustainable. We discover how old fire hoses in the UK have been diverted from landfill and turned into fashionable bags and accessories. Plus we visit Mongolia to find out about a new luxury material made from yak hair. It's an eco-friendly replacement for cashmere which comes from goats who are causing desertification. Presenter: Myra Anubi Producer/reporter: Claire Bowes Executive Producer: Richard Kenny Series Producer: Jon Bithrey Editor: Tom Bigwood Sound Mix: Andrew Mills

Redefining luxury fashion

Learning to read empowers people, reduces poverty and increases their job chances. Yet more than 700 miliion adults are illiterate, the majority of them women. We look at innovations to help adults learn how to read from flatpack classrooms in flood-prone regions of Bangladesh, to an app teaching tens of thousands in Somaliland. Plus how adults in the UK are improving their reading skills thanks to an army of volunteer teachers using a method developed in prison. Presenter: Myra Anubi
Reporter/producer: Claire Bates
Series producer: Jon Bithrey
Editor: Tom Bigwood
Sound mix: Andrew Mills (Image: Jahura Begum, Shabnur Akhter, Rashida Begum at Friendship class in Bangladesh, Friendship)

How literacy can change a life

We all know about the power of music to change our mood or to make us move. But an increasing body of evidence is showing that music has an amazing ability to help us heal. In this programme we are going to meet people working at the cutting edge of music therapy. We find out about the innovative system that uses music to help people with dementia live at home for longer. We will see how using songs and rhythms is helping people with Parkinson’s move more freely. And in a refugee camp in Uganda we meet the teachers using music to bring people together and overcome trauma. Presenter: Myra Anubi
Producer/Reporter: Richard Kenny
Series Producer: Jon Bithrey
Editor: Richard Vadon
Sound Mix: Frank McWeeny (Image: Salam Music Program in Bidibidi, Uganda)

Shockwaves for the heart

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