In 2012, Adana Omágua Kambemba traveled 4,000 kilometers from her home in Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon, to take up a coveted spot studying medicine at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. She became the first person from her community, the Kambeba or Omágua people, to graduate in a field still largely dominated by a white elite. According to the 2022 census, Indigenous people made up just 0.1% of medical graduates in Brazil.
Even before receiving her diploma, Adana began fasting, striving toward her next goal: to become a shaman. She believes her calling is to bridge the gap between Western medicine and the many healing traditions of Indigenous peoples.
This message struck me when I first saw Adana at a 2024 innovation conference in Rio de Janeiro. She stood out among hundreds of panelists and sponsors discussing business insights, new tech frontiers, and familiar buzzwords. On stage, wearing long feather earrings and rattles made of seeds, Adana gave a powerful talk about the invisibility of Indigenous knowledge, emphasizing that scientific research must not usurp Indigenous expertise.
After Adana returned to Manaus, we had long video calls and exchanged voice messages over several weeks for her profile. I was struck by how she mediates conflicts that arise when doctors don’t respect Indigenous healing traditions, or when Indigenous patients mistrust treatments prescribed by doctors. As an activist, she campaigns for biomedicine to open up to Indigenous knowledge, not subjugate it.
The path has not been easy. At university, Adana faced prejudice and nearly had a breakdown. Then she heard a voice that strengthened her resolve: “Something inside me said, ‘This is your mission. Never doubt it.’”
For two years, Zhino Babamiri has lived between two wars: one waged by the Islamic Republic, which sentenced her father, Rezgar Beigzadeh Babamiri, to death in Iran; and the other within herself. During months of sleepless nights, she weighed whether speaking about her father might be the very thing that sealed his fate.
For families like Zhino’s, the terror lies not in speaking to Western media, but in what follows: retaliation. I have interviewed several families in Iran who learned their loved ones were hanged at dawn—with no final goodbyes or last embrace. According to rights groups, more than 1,400 people have been executed in Iran this year, crushing dreams and destroying families. The fear is palpable.
Even during our interview, I sensed the terror in Zhino’s voice, but also her determination to save her father. She made it clear that silence hadn’t saved him. Each morning, her heart races as she unlocks her phone, bracing for news she is not ready to receive. And still, she wakes up every day ready to continue the fight—not only for her dad, but for other Iranian fathers on death row.
Alongside children of fathers facing the same fate, Zhino, 24, co-founded Daughters of Justice to campaign against the record number of executions in Iran. She refuses to stand back, launching online campaigns and meeting European politicians in an attempt to save lives. “I am only doing what [my father] taught me: resisting,” she says.
Watching her take up this fight in exile reminds me of the first few days after Mahsa Amini’s death in custody, when I interviewed young Iranian women marching the streets for freedom.
She has also had to endure the ongoing trauma of reading about the torture and awful conditions her father has had to face.All Zhino wants is to have her father back home, to sit beside him and rewatch the US sitcom How I Met Your Mother, just like they did when she was younger. When I asked her what keeps her going, she said, “My father used to say, ‘Berxwedan jiyan e’—resistance is life. Now, I am only doing what he taught me: resisting.”
The Ugandan politician who stood up to sexism
The world will be watching Uganda next month as the country goes to the polls. Will President Yoweri Museveni lose his grip on power after four decades in rule? One thing is certain: it won’t be a woman who unseats the octogenarian incumbent, because all eight candidates on the ballot are men. This isn’t because women didn’t put themselves forward—it’s because politics remains a boys’ club, and women are not welcome.
Yvonne Mpambara experienced these barriers firsthand when she ran as a presidential candidate for the 2026 election. She was one of only three women who gained enough support to be considered for nomination—yet none made it onto the final ballot.
As a young lawyer from a civil society background, Mpambara knew her chances of success were slim, but she didn’t anticipate the level of sexist abuse and objectification she would face. Men either accused her of sleeping with politicians to get ahead or propositioned her themselves.
Mpambara, 33, described the experience as “one of the most disrespectful periods of my life.” Depressingly, her article detailing the harassment unleashed even more abuse. “The misogyny is coming out in full force,” she messaged me shortly after it was published. Men commented that she should just “learn to take nice compliments.”
Yet she refuses to let the abuse derail her. She may not have made the ballot this time, but she is fighting back in the most effective way—by setting up a foundation to nurture future female leaders. She is also in the process of establishing an all-female political party.
Mpambara embodies the idea that gender equality is never a given; it is always fought for. I have no doubt she is now a role model for many girls and young women who followed her as she offered a new political vision for Uganda—a future where women are given the same opportunities and respect as men.
The Gazan father who risked his life to feed his children
Each day, Raed Jamal would leave his tent on the coast in southwest Gaza and walk toward the one place he might have a chance of getting food for his family—what he called “the American aid” centers. He would queue with others, follow a specified route, and pass through checkpoints, surrounded at all times by Israeli soldiers and U.S. mercenaries. Often, he posted TikToks of this journey, which is how I first found him.
I spoke to Jamal soon after he posted a video of himself and friends lying on the ground as bullets whizzed overhead. He told me how he had seen people killed while trying to get aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—a U.S.-run militarized aid system that, at the time, had replaced UN distributions. Despite the danger and the times he returned empty-handed, he kept going because food in the markets was too expensive, and this was the only way he could feed his family.
“What else can we do? Our life is a struggle,” he told me.
Jamal’s struggle to look after his family has continued since a ceasefire was agreed in October. Aid access is better than before, but his concern now is how to protect his family from rains that flood their tattered tent. With little money and unable to return home, he is constantly searching for solutions.Searching for ways to keep his tent standing and his family warm, Raed is one of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Palestinians in Gaza facing a third winter of hunger and homelessness, even as the crisis has faded from the headlines.
Four years ago, Zeynure Hasan was stranded in Istanbul with her three young children, struggling to reunite her family. Her husband, Idris, was imprisoned in Morocco at the request of Chinese authorities—a target of China’s relentless campaign against Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group from Xinjiang who have fled into exile.
Zeynure says she lived a quiet family life and wasn’t active on social media. But she knew she had to take a public stand to save her husband. “Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die,” she says. “They pushed me to speak out.”
At great personal risk, she launched a campaign to highlight Idris’s imprisonment for promoting Uyghur culture and identity. She reached out to journalists, politicians, lawyers, and activists—all while working as a teacher and caring for her children.
With China pressuring Morocco to deport him, Idris’s release seemed unlikely. Yet Zeynure’s love and determination never wavered. This September, the family was finally reunited after being granted asylum in Canada.
Alaak “Kuku” Akuei remembers the pointless street fights, the drugs, and his mother’s tears when she visited him in jail. “It took me three years to leave the gang,” the 25-year-old recalls. “To exit, you have to pay your way out.”
Now a football coach and founder of the Young Dream Football Academy in Juba, South Sudan, Akuei believes in using sports to tackle the surge of youth violence in his country.
His mission is personal. He knows what it’s like to feel unsupported yet desperate to “be someone.” “Young people want recognition and money—sometimes they’re just hungry. Gangs offer that,” he says, reflecting on his own choice to join a crew at 13 after moving to Juba without his parents.
“My problem was that I didn’t go to school,” he admits, apologizing for his English. “I want to build a career as a leader. I started with seven kids, and now we’re a thousand. It makes me believe football can stop this gang problem.”
What stands out about Akuei isn’t just that he turned his life around—it’s that he’s now a respected figure in the same neighborhood where he was once a gang member. He provides a safe space and belonging to children who might otherwise feel abandoned by society.
I met Amanda in downtown Johannesburg on a clear, cool day in May. For seven years, she had worked as an outreach helper.At a clinic for sex workers operated by the Reproductive Health and HIV Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits RHI), Amanda had worked as an outreach counselor. She was forced to return to street-based sex work at age 39 when the clinic closed following USAID funding cuts.
Amanda guided me through the sex work “hotspots” in Johannesburg’s declining central business district—a parking area with makeshift shacks where women see clients, and a roadside spot under a bridge where they are picked up by car. She knew everyone by name, and it was clear they respected her.
Amanda herself is HIV-positive and had to rely on a client to buy her medication. Yet she carried herself with confidence and continued to show care and concern for others.
Her empathy and insight made it obvious that Amanda had been an exceptional outreach worker. Grassroots community workers are the unsung heroes of healthcare around the world. It’s unfortunate that it took so many of them losing their jobs for people to recognize their value.
The Wits RHI clinic is set to reopen once an agreement is signed with the health ministry, though services will be more limited as they focus on training ministry staff and transferring patients to the public system. Amanda has applied for recently advertised jobs but hasn’t heard back yet.
—Rachel Savage
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about We Can Be Heroes Inspiring People We Met Around the World in 2025 Part One designed to sound like questions from real readers
General Concept
Q What is We Can Be Heroes about
A Its a documentary series that travels the globe to share the stories of everyday people doing extraordinary things to help their communities and the planet
Q Is this fiction or based on real people
A Its completely nonfiction Every story features a real person the creators met and interviewed during their travels in 2025
Q Why Part One Will there be more
A Yes Part One suggests this is the first installment covering a specific set of regions or themes The plan is to continue the journey and release more parts in the future
Q What makes these people heroes
A The series redefines heroism These arent celebrities with superpowers they are ordinary individuals showing incredible courage kindness and innovation in the face of local challenges from environmental cleanup to educating children
Content Stories
Q Which countries or regions are featured in Part One
A Part One focuses on stories from Southeast Asia parts of coastal Africa and urban centers in South America highlighting how different environments shape local heroes
Q Can you give an example of one inspiring person from the series
A Sure One story might be about a former fisherman in Indonesia who now leads a community plastic recycling hub turning ocean waste into durable building materials and creating jobs
Q What kinds of challenges do these heroes face
A Common challenges include lack of funding political or social barriers environmental disasters and the sheer scale of the problems theyre trying to solve The series shows their resilience in overcoming these hurdles
Q Does the series just praise them or does it show the hard parts too
A It shows the full picture Youll see their successes and the positive impact but also their doubts failures and the personal sacrifices they make for their mission
Purpose Impact
Q Whats the main goal of this series
A To inspire hope and action It aims to show that
