Everyday heroes

People who do not just undergo their destiny but courageously row against the current, looking for a way out of downward spirals and vicious circles: Belgian conflict journalist Rudi Vranckx has met them for 25 years during his travels. Mothers, fathers, village superiors, simple citizens, activists...: anonymous and futile they seem in the bigger picture, they won’t win Nobel prices but they stand on the barricades of everyday life and choose to take fate into their own hands. In an ever chaotic world, they bring stories that do not depress, but inspire.

In Mexico, civilian guards enter into battle with drug gangs. In Romania former orphans, Roma and victims of human trafficking rise above the fragments of a failed state - by trial and error. In Kenya, two young women and an old man refuse to resign themselves to the poaching that threatens to destroy their most spectacular, walking heritage: the elephants. In the US, black youngsters are still growing up more often than whites in deprivation of opportunity, although three inspiring practice experts do everything they can to refer this injustice to the past. Entrepreneurs, journalists and a priest are fighting the mafia in Naples and Sicily. And Myanmar tries to shake off half a century of military regime.