When an Indian man invented a simple machine for poor rural women to make cheap sanitary pads, the idea was to provide jobs for some, and hygiene for millions - often for the first time. The story gave one British woman an idea that quickly became her mission in life.

Jon Cohen, who covers HIV/AIDS for Science magazine, and photographer Malcolm Linton have been documenting the lives of HIV-infected people in Tijuana for two years. In their new book, Tomorrow Is A Long Time, they tell stories of the people in El Bordo as well as the Zona Norte (the red light district) and La Mesa prison.

The sad truth is that a significant number of global philanthropic foundations have investments in the fossil fuel industry, including those where donations to environmental causes and climate change is a significant part of their portfolio… As we move from the UN's Sustainable Development Goals...to the Climate Change Summit in Paris...the deep contradictions in global philanthropy must be acknowledged.

A group of orphans and street children have been trained in photography and asked to capture the world around them […] It became known as the Murmushi Photo Project. As well as giving them a practical means by which they might one day make a living, it provides them with a visual voice through which they can document their worlds.

And the winner for most charitable nation in the world is ... Myanmar. Coming in second: the United States. […] The ranking confounds the common perception "that generosity and wealth are connected to one another," says Adam Pickering, the international policy manager of the London-based Charities Aid Foundation (CAF)...Only five of the G20 countries appear in the top 20, he points out. 

Pope Francis held a private meeting with South Sudan's President Salva Kiir on Friday, pushing for peace in the world's newest nation that has endured nearly two years of civil war, a Vatican spokesman said.

Some Americans chose to react to the Paris tragedy with embarrassing displays of xenophobia and bigotry. Others, however, chose compassion instead. A’s baseball player Sean Doolittle and his partner Eireann Dolan invited 17 Syrian refugee families to share in their Thanksgiving meal […] They are also launching a crowd-funding campaign to help sponsor Syrian refugee families who have arrived in Chicago.

[…] Films are targeted at an international audience, which is already saddled with its own preconceptions of Africa [...] Why tie the film so explicitly to a cause that “needs immediate attention,” if not to profit on the outdated idea of that there is a foreign land that needs saving? Art can certainly dramatize real-life events, but it can’t be the earnest volunteer on the street with a Greenpeace clipboard.