1)     Kathy Griffin – My Life on the D List. In one episode, Kathy and her boyfriend, Apple Computer founder Steve Wozniak, open a computer center/library at a school in Mexico. The kids at the school have never used computers and have never even heard of the Internet. After initially appearing unenthused about the project, as they see the potential of the computers in terms of creativity and output, the children become extremely excited and competitive about their time on the computers. By the end of the show, you can tell that these kids should benefit enormously from this small change in their education.

2)     Dateline – Five years ago, the Dateline team joined forces with local police investigators to infiltrate a child sex trafficking ring in Cambodia. They arrest a lot of the perpetrators and rescue many of the girls who were forced to become prostitutes, at all ages, including as young as 8. A lot of these girls were sold to the brothels by their parents. Dateline does a follow-up story on four of the young girls who are all adjusting nicely, living in a boarding school, and who have nothing but high praise for the people who saved them from their plight. As part of the story, they also told of a Seattle family that, after viewing the first special, sold everything they owned and moved to Cambodia and opened up an aid center in the brothel district. That family’s efforts have rescued hundreds more children. It is estimated that about 30,000 underage children are involved in the sex trade in Cambodia.

3)     Born into Brothels – A New York photographer traveled to India to spend a year documenting conditions in the brothels in Calcutta’s red light district. She ended up changing her mission early into the process when she became acquainted with the many children of prostitutes living in despicable conditions in the brothels. Initially she thought to use the children to assist her photography project by giving them cameras to take pictures of scenes she would never be able to capture. After seeing their work and growing close to some of the children, she determines to do everything she can to help some of the children escape their seemingly hopeless situations. She succeeds in getting a handful of children into boarding schools and also puts on a couple photography exhibits in India and the U.S. with the children’s pictures. Most of the children eventually end up dropping out or being pulled out of the schools, mostly because of the lack of any follow-up efforts on their behalf.

4)    Beyond Belief – Two Boston women met and became friends after both losing their husbands on 9/11 flights. Both women were pregnant when their husbands were killed. After the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began, the women had a huge empathetic reaction to the plight of Afghani war widows. They started the Beyond the Eleventh non-profit organization to raise funds to help Afghani widowed mothers. They raised almost $200,000 in their initial “Cycling Beyond” project, where they rode their bikes from Ground Zero to Boston to raise awareness of their cause. The money, with the assistance of the CARE people, provided 15 baby chicks each to 400 widows. With direction and assistance, the women learn how to become self-sufficient using the chickens for food and money. Several years after the start of the project, the two women travel to Kabul and interact with the widows whom they have helped. To a person, the women are filled with gratitude and love for their previously faceless benefactors.