This adventurous British woman decides to protest China's occupation of Tibet in London's streets. But she soon realizes that this is not promoting change fast enough, so she travels to Tibet to fight injustice. Through tenacity and inventiveness she meets with the Dalai Lama and the Chinese ambassador, proving that one determined person can make a difference.
"More girls have been killed in the last fifty years than men were killed in all the battles of the twentieth century," according to this husband-and-wife writing team. They examine human rights abuses against females, highlighting programs that provide third-world women and girls with education and employment.
In the tradition of Gandhi and Florence Nightingale, these nine activists from South Africa to Australia set up programs promoting better health care, college access, and rural electrification. Bornstein finds the common techniques that make these do-gooders successful in changing lives.
A Michigan woman moves to Afghanistan and helps women there by setting up the first modern beauty salon and training school. Besides becoming a social hub for the neighborhood women, Miss Debbie's school teaches the ladies important occupational skills so they can make their own livelihoods.
A Palestine returns to visit his old stone home in Ramla, formerly in Palestine, but now part of Israel. He discovers that Israeli immigrants, survivors of the Holocaust from Bulgaria, now live there. They forge an unlikely friendship and begin a four-decade long dialogue. Finally, they gather a group of Palestinian and Israeli children and plant lemon seeds from an old tree in the house's back yard.
A biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, a medical anthropologist and practitioner, who has fought hard to bring medical aid to the poor in Haiti, to "the underdogs of the underdogs." Kidder, who has won a Pulitzer and a National Book Award, shares this inspiring story about the founder of Partners in Health and documents Farmer's extraordinary life of self-sacrifice and commitment.
Nafisi, a professor in Iran, invites seven promising female students to her own home to discuss some banned works of Western literature. At great risk to herself, the author promotes the education of women. Together, the women discuss important ideas that change their lives.