“What we're seeing is the desperation out there in the hospitals [...] At the same time [...] a group of young doctors have set up centres where they run oxygen therapy [...] hotels have been converted into oxygen wards for people who need that to be able to breathe properly.”

Yasmin Ali Haque has worked for UNICEF for almost 25 years and is now the UNICEF Representative in India. She describes the current situation there: COVID is bringing communities together, but it is also driving some of the world’s poorest families back to negative coping mechanisms such as a returning rise in child marriage.

“I think it's really about how do we all together ride this wave? Because already there's been talk about India being hit by a third wave. We're not even over the second wave yet. ”

Yasmin also worked in Sri Lanka when the devastating tsunami hit in 2004. She shares her memories of that event and of growing up in a repartition camp in Bangladesh during the Indo-Pakistan war in the 1970s.

:: Yasmin Ali Haque interviewed by Melissa Fleming

“I returned from Bangladesh...and sent all of my dresses for dry cleaning. I have not worn these dresses again. I can't wear them. There's too much pain...because I came out and I was wet with all the women crying. I like to open the wardrobe and remind myself of the survivors at all times. They are my moral compass and I have to keep fighting for them. This is what keeps me going.”

Pramila Patten, the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, is working tirelessly to advocate on behalf of the victims for accountability and justice.

"When you talk to Yazidi women, they tell you they want justice and reparations, in addition to support services [...] Whether it is Iraq [...] Nigeria [...] Somalia or Sudan [...] And for me, that is very frustrating that so far, for example, where sexual violence is used as a tactic of terrorism, no single person belonging to Boko Haram or ISIS has been prosecuted for sexual violence. They are getting prosecuted under the counter terrorism legislation, but not for sexual violence."

:: Pramila Patten interviewed by Melissa Fleming

“[There are] two iconic images of the 20th century: Diana walking through the minefield in body armour and then with a little girl who lost a leg to a mine. I was proud to...highlight the incredible work that's been done by deminers around the world by hosting that visit.”

Paul Heslop is the Head of the UN Mine Action Team in Afghanistan and has been clearing mines in conflict zones for nearly 30 years. He shares the remarkable progress deminers have made in removing explosive devices across the globe with Mozambique (his first post back in ‘94) declaring itself mine-free 2 years ago. Paul also recounts his time as a field officer for the Halo Trust when Princess Diana came to visit a minefield in Angola where he was working back in 1997. He recalls that epochal moment and how his quick thinking led to the non-profit gaining huge worldwide exposure through the iconic photographs of the trip.

:: Paul Heslop interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"And then they shipped me over to Buchanan, which was completely rebel controlled areas. No government, no army over there. And we were, we were actually guarded by child soldiers."

Aboubacar Kampo is UNICEF’s Director of Health Programmes but he has also worked as a physician and surgeon in some of the world’s most complex emergency zones: Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan... In one instance, at a time when he was working in the ER wards of Chad, the government was forced to share beds between the rebel forces.

"Initially, we thought we could separate them between the different rooms. But then we also had females in one of the rooms... we can't kick them out just because of them. So they had to share beds, then you realise, you know, most of them, they actually know each other! You can see them talking among themselves."

:: Aboubacar Kampo interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"She was held at gunpoint and taken away and we were told that unless a certain amount of money was going to be paid or a certain number of jobs were going to be allocated, they were going to shoot her."

David Shearer is UN Secretary General's Special Representative for South Sudan and head of UNMISS. He's also served in other crisis areas. David shares his career stories from the nerve-wracking negotiations to release his wife from gunpoint in Somalia, to his incredible work entering behind Sri Lankan government lines to deliver exam papers to its schools.

On COVID in South Sudan he said "if you take the experience of Ebola in West Africa a few years ago, Ebola killed about 11,000 people in West Africa. But [...] what they found was that far more people died of other diseases: malaria, diarrhoea, tuberculosis, whatever, because they weren't being treated in the health centres [...] so the invisible death rate was way higher than the very visible death rate from Ebola. So one of the things that we were determined to do here was to make sure that the health centres continue to function."

:: David Shearer interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"I was at Minustah’s headquarters, Hotel Christopher, and was sitting preparing myself for a meeting the next day, just before five. And there was a shaking rumble as if a large truck was driving by outside [...] I realised it was an earthquake and the shaking stopped, maybe for a couple of seconds. I decided to hide under the table to protect myself against falling debris. There was a very loud noise and the next thing I remember was that I was lying on my back, pitch dark, not a sound. I could not move out of this coffin where I was confined. I had maybe 5cm on each side of my shoulder and about 5-7cm above my nose. I was lying with bent knees so maybe a metre and a half a leg or something like that."

It’s been over ten years since Senior Civil Affairs Officer, Jens Kristensen found himself trapped in the earthquake that hit Haiti’s Hotel Christopher. Jens recounts his harrowing experience of being confined in a dark coffin-like space for five days with no water or drink, not knowing when, or if, he would be rescued. He also explains his remarkable decision to return to work after just two days following the rescue knowing that "mentally and physically I was capable and still able to help."

:: Jens Kristensen interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"I often think about TB, because 1.5 million people die of tuberculosis every year, year after year. It's such a huge toll and yet, we only react when there's a pandemic, or an epidemic, where it's very dramatic [...] But to me, these new technologies now offer us the possibility to control diseases [...] through novel vaccines that we did not have before."

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation, shares her insights on how lessons from other infectious diseases, like tuberculosis and HIV, have shaped our response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. She explains the science of the chase after an evolving virus and stresses the global nature of it.

"We've seen time and time again that products developed in high income countries take decades to find their way to low income countries. This has happened with influenza pandemics. It's happened with HIV. It's happened with hepatitis B vaccines. It took 30 years for hepatitis B vaccines to get to developing countries and that's exactly the reason why the COVAX was set up."

:: Soumya Swaminathan interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"I would go to the villages, and people will tell me, ‘On this day, we learned that we were going to be attacked [...] and then it happened.’ The question then became for me, ‘If people know that they are going to be attacked, and you don't have 911. You don't have ways of calling. The nearest policeman is 600 miles away. What do you do?'"

In this episode, we listen to the story of Alice Nderitu, the Secretary General’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide. Alice speaks candidly about her experiences mediating in areas of conflict and how her powerful storytelling techniques built a peace agreement between 56 ethnic communities that still stands today.

When she was a young girl, she had told her brother "'I'm going to be an elder, and I'm going to sit there and I'll make decisions.’ And my brother would tell me, ‘You’re a girl. Girls don't get to do that. Only men can do that.’ And so we...now it's a joke between us."

:: Alice Nderitu interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"We all need to be convinced that we don't have a plan B. We only have one plan. And that one plan is to correct how we do business around our food systems and what our environment can handle. Our planet can take care of itself. It will eject us and move on. But is that where we want to be?"

Agnes Kalibata, UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to the 2021 Food Systems Summit, shares her remarkable story of growing up in a Ugandan refugee camp with her Rwandan parents. Her father, a trained doctor, was forced to retrain as a farmer after relocating. But his passion for learning drives his daughter and she’s admitted into the best girls' school in Uganda, receiving a UNHCR scholarship to support her studies.

Agnes discusses how an encounter during her Ph.D led to her becoming the former Minister of Agriculture in Rwanda and why it’s so important to build resilience around climate change at this year’s Food System Summit.

:: Agnes Kalibata interviewed by Melissa Fleming

"No, you cannot have two metres apart from a family member who may show symptoms because it's only one room. No, you cannot wash your hands regularly because there is no tap water and the children of the woman will have to go 5 kilometres away to get some water. No, you don't wash your hands because between buying a bit of rice and soap, you choose the rice. And no, you don't stop going out to beg on the street or to have one of those daily meagre wages from daily work because the money you get in the morning is the money which allows you to buy lunch. [...] Yes, the Western world worries about the coronavirus. Yemen cannot even afford to worry about the coronavirus because we have malaria, chikungunya, cholera and dengue fever. All that. Plus, there is a famine," said Jean-Nicolas Beuze, Representative of the UN Refugee Agency in Yemen.

In a deeply personal interview about his career helping refugees and victims of torture, Jean-Nicolas describes being driven by the “denial of their human rights” and that “injustice was something I could not accept”. He also reveals fearing for the first time for his own loved ones who face the dangers of COVID-19 back home.

:: Jean-Nicolas Beuze interviewed by Melissa Fleming