281: Housekeeping

We figured this was as good a time as any to round up all our loose ends and stick them in one place. In this issue: a new charity partner, discounted offers for group subscriptions, an update on the malaria podcast, and our content calendar for the next two months.

Our newest charity partner

We're so pleased to introduce you to the Society for Participatory Activity, an NGO in India which helps the children of sex workers. Their centre, located in the heart of Delhi's red light district, is open 24 hours a day and currently home to over 200 children, who receive food, safe shelter, counselling, and education.

SPID started two decades ago, with just five children, and their team estimates that since then they've supported more than 3,000 children, many of whom have gone on to become self-sufficient, get good jobs, and in some cases even been able to support their mothers to move out of sex work.

We're sending them US$5,000. Thank you so much to all our paid subscribers for making this possible, these funds will go a long way in this part of the world, and make big difference to a lot of these kids.

Give the gift of Fix The News

This holiday season, why not give your friends, family or co-workers the gift of some actual, real good news? We're offering a discounted rate on all group subscriptions before the end of the year. Here's the deal:

• Buy two to four annual subscriptions, for $50 each (37% discount).
• Buy five to 20 annual subscriptions, for $40 each (50% discount).
• If you're interested in an institutional subscription for 21 people or more, we can offer this at $30 per annual subscription (67% discount).

We rarely offer discounts this high. It's a great way to give the people you work with greater clarity about what's really happening in the world, or to help your friends and loved ones counteract the pervasive negativity that's such a hallmark of modern life.

An update on our malaria vaccine podcast

 
After months of research, a few false starts and a lot of unstable internet connections, we have miraculously banked 12 interviews, plus a ton of Whatsapp voice notes, and the story has really started to take shape. 16 countries in Africa have begun administering malaria vaccines this year, and the news bulletins about those shipments arriving in places like Maputo or Freetown have been pretty exciting.

However, as soon as we started drilling down on the experience of one country - Sierra Leone - we discovered that the reality on the ground is far more complicated than the picture being painted in those reports. The logistical hurdles of getting the vaccine out to the communities who need it most are just incredibly high; it's not a ‘straight line from A to B’ kind of journey - the roads are bad or sometimes even non-existent, keeping the vaccines cold is a nightmare, and tracking them all is an ongoing challenge.

What surprised us the most though, is how much work has to be done before the vaccines even land at the airport. Every day across Sierra Leone, there are people literally going door to door to combat misinformation and get local communities on board. While we expected to speak to healthcare workers, we never imagined the key roles that religious leaders or a group of market women would play. But that’s the thing about zooming in. You discover things that are impossible to describe in a one-off news report, especially when it comes to a global story as epic as this one.

That's exactly why we're making this thing.

We're currently on track for a March 2025 release date, but we need some help! The biggest missing piece of the puzzle right now is UNICEF Sierra Leone, who are procuring and funding the administering of the vaccine through the Ministry of Health. We would love to speak to either their leadership, or even better, any of their workers on the ground. If anyone reading this has any leads or contacts we'd love to hear from you.

Our upcoming publishing schedule

Later this week, we're sending out an essay on all the lessons we learned in Season Three of the podcast. This was our favourite season yet, featuring some wonderful conversations with some big names like Kris Tompkins and Steven Pinker, as well as a few lesser-known names whose words and advice we're still thinking about, months later.

Then, next week, we're publishing our annual list of good news stories (here's last year's list). 2024 has really felt like a year of hidden progress - we managed to find so much evidence of a mounting groundswell of change, in everything from global living standards and healthcare to clean energy and conservation, and yet even for us, those stories have been trampled by what seemed like a never-ending series of crises. The news has come thick, fast and horrible this year, and to be honest, we're still reeling.

Putting this list together is always such a good reminder of how much has gone right, despite all the bad news. There have been thousands of stories of progress - going through them and choosing the ones that mattered is helping us keep things in perspective. We hope it'll help you do the same. We can't wait to share it with you.

After we publish our big end of year list we'll be on holiday until mid-January. Thanks for reading, we love ya, keep an eye out on your inbox.

Gus, Amy and the rest of the FTN team