The 32 optimistic stories of 2021 on sustainable development in Future Planet

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, the age of wisdom, and also of madness ...".

The beginning of A

, by Charles Dickens, could well describe this time in which we live, after almost two years of pandemic that does not seem to have an end; in which we are witnessing a decline in the indicators of each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) due to covid-19; with a climate emergency that is already a reality and with a tremendous uncertainty about the future that hangs over many, who already lived being poor and invisible. But as in the aforementioned book, the work of the one who was the narrator of the very poor social conditions of the 19th century, there is also a gap, amid so much drama and pessimism, for glimpses in the shadows, to discover another kinder face, wherever hope is just a concept.

A hope that does not seem lost for Verónica Villalvazo, a Mexican journalist and activist, who denounces and investigates murders of women and minors. Or for Thimbo Samb, a Senegalese actor who at the age of 17 got on an unstable boat, near Dakar, and already dreamed of telling in a film the story of his uncle, a Guinean lawyer who ended up being a 'mantero' and died in Valencia . "Someone has to start changing things," says Samb. If something unites all the protagonists of these stories of improvement and optimism, it is their fighting spirit to transform their closest environment and with it, the world.

This is an inspiring and exhaustive list (impossible to leave anyone out), for which we have chosen 32 reports published between January and December 2021, and although there are not all that they are, they are all that there are.

A gift full of optimism that the protagonists, people from all over the world, bring with their enthusiasm, strength and resilience, in this troubled time.

1. They and the future Olympian of Chad

This is the story of a life change, that of four girls from Chad, one of the poorest in the world, who arrived in Madrid thanks to a scholarship that allowed them to continue their studies and train as professional athletes.

They represent the tenacity and sporting hope of their country, as one can become its representative in artistic gymnastics at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

Achta, one of the Chadian gymnasts received in Madrid, jumps in one of the classrooms of the San Francisco Javier de Toukra school, in Chad.Antonio López Díaz

2. The Spanish merry-go-round that travels through Africa

A message on his social networks from a Gambian teacher turned the life course of the Argentine, living in Spain, Emiliano Matesanz.

He could have ignored it, but he didn't.

He, who was dedicated to transforming waste into children's games, has ended up taking his carousel made with recycled materials to different countries in Africa, on a journey full of encounters and children's experiences.

Now he uses it to instruct street children in Sierra Leone.

A Sierra Leonean girl enjoys the carousel in Freetown, Sierra Leone.José Ignacio Martínez Rodríguez

3. The Mexican medalist who had to sell sandwiches to reach the World Athletics Championships

Again the sport, gave us a joy.

Young Sofía Ramos took gold in the last U20 athletics competition.

To reach the podium, in addition to defeating his rivals, he has had to overcome the adversities of poverty: he lives in a shanty town without basic services.

Here you see her in action.

Inside video.

04:42

The marcher Sofía Ramos Rodríguez in her community.

4. The boy from Senegal who made a telescope out of wire and soda cans

Africa never ceases to amaze us.

The children don't either.

With ingenuity, 12-year-old Malick Ndiaye learned to identify the stars from an old book from his father and draws his own maps of the sky.

And in two weeks he made his own telescope out of scraps to satisfy his hobby!

"Now I can see Jupiter well and even the rings of Saturn," he told reporter José Naranjo at home.

Don't believe it?

Here the graphic proof.

Malick Ndiaye, next to the telescope that he made with wire, soda cans and canes.José Naranjo

In 2021, despite the setbacks in development indicators, we have been able to count on some achievements for women's rights.

In Mexico, in Indonesia, in Uganda.

They have fought for the memory of the victims of femicides, have made the hijab not mandatory and have improved agricultural processes, among other logos.

Here we tell you:

8. Kidogo, the meaning of small in Swahili and the value of care in a nursery

Preschool care is often viewed as a hobby in Kenya.

A new network of affordable kindergartens tries to alleviate the lack of adequate methodology for early development.

9. The Spanish sisters who offer free education to vulnerable children in Lebanon

Janira teaching a class at the NGO school 26 Letters. 26 Letters

It was one of the most widely read reports for weeks.

Two twins left their previous lives to found 26 Letters, a school in Beirut where they teach English, math and history to 100 students between the ages of three and 19.

A task that has been complicated after the last setbacks suffered by the country, but they were still there ...

10. Heroes without a cape, but with a pencil

The pandemic has affected all aspects of life, but it has had a special impact on the education of children, who were deprived of school for months, in some Latin American countries, for a year.

But the determination of some teachers was key for their students to continue training despite adversity.

Wherever we go there is calamity ... and also people who overcome.

This is the case of Adriana López, Carmen Valencia, William Añapa and Iván Roque, who made an effort so that no student was left behind.

With this, we spent a day of class in Ecuador.

06:41

REPORT |

Heroes without a cape, but with a pencil

11. What happened in the savannah when it was emptied of tourists

Jore Alesanco (c)

During the months of confinement, many of us saw from our windows how nature colonized the urban space.

However, in the Masai Mara nature reserve in Kenya, the animals took back what is theirs.

A year after the first state of alarm due to covid-19 in Spain, TVE released a report that compiled what was documented by a Spanish film crew that was trapped in that country, among lions, crocodiles, hyenas and elephants.

The wild beauty of life made its way into the crisis.

12. The LGTBIQ community seeks its space in the Ivory Coast, one of the 22 countries in Africa where homosexuality is legal

Hopeful news from the African continent.

Not everything is hunger, war, discrimination.

Not much less.

This report from the Ivory Coast is good proof of this.

Considered the paradise of West Africa and French-speaking Africa for the LGTBIQ community, it is one of the African countries where homosexuality is not prohibited (of 55 territories, only 22 are recognized as legality) and whose Penal Code, which punished homosexual public acts , was modified by social pressure.

13.In search of the next Ansu Fati

The promoter of the football school in this dirt field in Bissau worked as a coach in Europe and now supports children without resources in the city Alvaro Garcia

During a walk through the capital of Guinea-Bissau, reporter Alejandra Agudo and photographer Álvaro García happened upon a soccer field.

But there was more than just sport going on there.

Causo Seidi, a professional coach who had worked in the UK, decided to return to his country to create a football school for street children.

"I started like them, without shoes, without anything."

The reporters hadn't planned it on their agenda, but they had to tell it ...

Soccer is the protagonist of many other positive stories and images, like the one that follows, from Kenya.

15. What if the solution comes with cloth pads?

The rule means skipping school or embarrassing yourself once a month in some parts of the world, and many teenagers can't afford hygiene products.

A community in Tanzania tries to help women to alleviate the drink and provide solutions and a new source of income: fabrics and a sewing machine are enough.

We were able to see how they were made and how a piece of cloth changes the lives of many girls and adolescents in the country.

Elisabeth shows one of the cloth sanitary towels that she makes in a workshop in Londoto, in northern Tanzania.José Ignacio Martínez Rodríguez

16. The fruit company of Ecuador that has given refuge to 10,000 Venezuelans

Carmen Carcelén radiates strength and infects it.

This fruit and vegetable seller in Ipiales, a Colombian city near the border with Ecuador, has spent four years dedicated, without rest or financial help, to being the refuge of all Venezuelans who flee their country and who pass through El Juncal, a town of just 2,500 inhabitants.

Its facilities have reached 500 people in a single day to eat and up to 138 to sleep.

Carmen Carcelén poses in one of the rooms of her house where she shelters migrants.Jaime Casal Ayuso

Like Carcelén, there are many more who are willing not to give up and to be an example with their dedication to others:

22 The priest who posed as an organ dealer to save a child's life

There are corners in the world where life has the price of a t-shirt.

Ignacio María Doñoro de los Ríos (Bilbao, 57 years old) could not believe that Manuel, a 14-year-old teenager who lived in the mountains of Panchimalco (El Salvador), could cost 25 dollars (21 euros).

This military chaplain, stationed there 25 years ago for a special mission with the National Police, posed as an organ trafficker to save this child's life.

He would not be the only one he would end up rescuing.

Nominated for the Princess of Asturias Award for Concord, he founded Hogar Nazaret, a refuge in Peru to give a dignified life to young people living in extreme poverty and victims of trafficking.

23. Na Lupita, woman of the clouds in front of the aeolian

Mrs. Guadalupe Ramírez, 70, has been defending her territory from wind companies for a decade Greta Rico

The strength with which Guadalupe Ramírez defends her territory can be compared to that of the wind from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Oaxacan region in southern Mexico that she inhabits and protects.

A decade ago, he began to train in a self-taught way in renewable energies, the law and obligations of the State with the indigenous people in order to defend their territory.

At 70, he leads the resistance of his Zapotec community against wind companies and has already achieved victories.

24. Doctor Rakh's 1,700 girls

India is missing more than 63 million girls.

More than the population of Spain and Portugal together.

And there are men, like the doctor Ganesh Rakh who are not willing to keep this happening.

From the city of Pune, he fights the stigma of having a daughter in India, a country that does not want them, and eliminates them.

For nine years it has offered free births to mothers who give birth to a girl.

In this video, you can find out what his greatest motivation is to continue.

01:04

The 1,700 girls of Doctor Rakh 3 |

Future Planet

25. Become a baker to return to Senegal

Seni, Mamadou, Cheikh, Moustapha and Abdoulaye are joined by a dream, and a job: that of a baker.

The five are part of the group of Senegalese migrants in Catalonia who are trained in pastry techniques and in managing their own business, in order to return home with a project for the future.

They seek financing to open the first of the bakeries in Dakar.

We went to meet them in Barcelona and Gerona, and we tried their creations, which will take them back home.

Moustapha Thiandoum, in the center in the background, along with Abdoulaye Kande, with a blue mask, and Mamadou Diouf (left) attend the bakery and pastry training workshop that they carried out thanks to Nostos Africa to train and thus be able to return to Senegal and set up their business.JUAN BARBOSA

Food not only fuels dreams, like those of Seni, Mamadou, Cheikh, Moustapha and Abdoulaye, but is also a source of wealth, education and well-being for people and the planet.

These are some examples:

31. A nursery school revolutionizes the Pablo Escobar neighborhood

The García family, the first day they moved to the Pablo Escobar neighborhood, in 1984 Santiago Mesa

The residents of the Pablo Escobar neighborhood want to breathe peace.

This is indicated by the

that welcomes visitors.

However, the stigma that has persecuted them has meant that it is only now, after 37 years of history in Commune 9, that they receive the first public investment: a kindergarten for 300 children from 0 to 5 years old.

32.The Tanzanian engineer who went from not having water at home to drinking water for thousands of people

Of all the problems that the young engineer Askwar Hilonga saw around him, the lack of clean water was the one that always caught his attention.

When he was little and drank the water of his town, his father said to imagine it was tea because of how dirty it was.

For this reason, when he grew up and studied, he wanted to change the lives of thousands of people by creating a system with nanomaterials to improve this resource, and from which hundreds of thousands of Africans can benefit today.

The prizes have showered him.

And well deserved.

The chemical engineer Askwar Hilonga, in the laboratory he runs in Arusha, Tanzania, where he studies the properties of different materials to make water drinkable.José Ignacio Martínez Rodríguez

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