HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT Sportsman Spirit: Sports, it is often said, helps bring people together. But no one could have imagined just how true — or critical — that adage would prove when 12 Thai junior soccer players, between the ages of 11 and 17, entered Tham Luang cave with their assistant coach after practice on June 23. Flooding trapped them inside. As Thai agencies struggled to rescue the team on their own, hundreds of military personnel, medical experts and volunteers from 15 other countries arrived to help them. One former Thai Navy Seal died of asphyxiation. But by July 10, all 12 children and their coach were rescued after a billion liters of water were pumped out. Teamwork prevailed to save lives. Coffee Cures: Jonny Boucher has lost 16 friends and family members to suicide. Now, he’s helping save many more lives. Boucher’s café, Sip of Hope, isn’t just one of many independent coffee shops in the city of Chicago. It’s a rare space where coffee blends with conversations about mental health. The coffee shop offers customers information about local mental health providers, online workshops, educational literature and brochures. It’s also the first café in the world to donate 100 percent of its proceeds toward suicide prevention and mental health. What a great way to drink to someone’s health. Halving Homicides: In 2012, Honduras had the worst homicide rate in the world, with 90 out of every 100,000 people killed. But a combination of a laser focus on specific crimes that often lead to murder, such as extortion, a targeted approach against large criminal gangs and admission of internal frailties dogging the country’s law enforcement system has since yielded dramatic results. Since 2016, Honduras has dismissed 4,455 corrupt police officers. Today, the country has halved its homicide rate compared to 2012. Spiderman Savior: When Mamoudou Gassama (pictured), a construction worker from Mali, traveled 3,700 miles and through the treacherous Mediterranean migrant route to reach France, he didn’t know if he would be welcomed. But when he saw a boy dangling from a balcony in Paris one day, he scaled four stories to save him. Lauded by the nation, Gassama was awarded citizenship and a job with the fire brigade by French President Emmanuel Macron. Moving Mountains: Jalandar Nayak, a vegetable seller, singlehandedly built a five-mile road through a hill in an inaccessible part of the eastern Indian state of Odisha so his children could walk to school. Nayak never got to go to school himself, and when he approached district authorities for help with his children’s education, they advised him to move with his family to the nearest town. But Nayak wasn’t going anywhere; he decided the mountain had to move. He worked with rudimentary tools — a pickaxe and a shovel — for eight hours every day for two years until the road was built. |
