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Outlook: Inspirations: Namibia's Outcast Mayor

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Inspirations: Namibia's Outcast Mayor

15/05/2018 GMT

BBC World Service - Outlook, Inspirations: Namibia's Outcast Mayor

Livey van Wyk went from being an HIV-positive teenager to the youngest mayor in Namibia

Livey van Wyk went from being an HIV-positive teenager to the youngest mayor in Namibia.

In 2010, at the age of 26, Outlook Inspirations nominee Livey van Wyk became the youngest person ever to be elected mayor in Namibia - an achievement all the more extraordinary because just a few years before the townspeople of Witvlei had made it very clear that she wasn't welcome there. She was attacked and ostracised because she was HIV-positive. Livey had got the diagnosis soon after discovering she was pregnant.

Jo Fidgen meets London fire investigator Paul Osborne and his cocker spaniel - and colleague - Sherlock.  Sherlock is a fire investigation dog who wears protective velcro booties on his four paws.  He's employed by the London Fire Brigade to sniff out traces of accelerants to see if a fire was started deliberately.  Paul's book is called 'Sherlock: The Fire Brigade Dog' published by Penguin Books.

New York-based Dr Melissa Freeman is known for her pioneering work with heroin addicts - she was the first doctor to treat women addicted to heroin by using a methadone maintenance programme.  She's still going - after 65 years in the profession. Outlook's Colm Flynn went to meet her.

Dave Benscoter is a former FBI investigator now known as the 'apple detective.'  He's taken it upon himself to find lost varieties of American apples, inspired by his father's love of the fruit. 

Image: Livey van Wyk 
Credit: UNICEF Torgovnik Verbatim Photo Agency

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