How West African hairdressers offer mental health support and a pathway to healing
DECEMBER 21ST, 2023 UPDATE: This solution is a Reader's Choice selection of 2023! Here's why one of our fellow optimists nominated this story: "A few days before [this article was published], I was at my favorite salon getting my hair done. As she was conditioning my hair and massaging my scalp Read More...
Senegal's only circus troupe helps homeless children get off the streets
Senegal has exactly one circus troupe: Sencirk—and it was founded by a former child beggar named Modou Touré. Before taking his place as ringmaster of his own circus, Touré, at the age of seven, was sent to a Quranic school. As punishment for learning the Islamic holy book too slowly, he was Read More...
Scientists discover a “spectacular” bright orange bat species in Africa
In early 2018, a group of scientists ventured off to conduct a conservation survey of bat populations in Guinea’s isolated Nimba Mountains in West Africa. The researchers were sleuthing in a series of old mining caves when they came across something unusual: a new species of bat with a fiery Read More...