Celia Hatton

Mayor, Adanich Abebe, has pledged to bring in some fresh solutions by the end of this year, including a bold promise to create thousands of playgrounds. And already, a simple plan to close hundreds of streets to traffic every Sunday appears to have made a difference to families. Hide and seek, and tag, and some running around games. They wake me up. I ride in my scooters.

I play football with my friends. Our neighborhoods don't have enough space for the children to run. It brings me so much joy just to spend this time together. Their social life comes alive. I play with them, I watch how they interact and I see them becoming part of something bigger. It's fun for them, but honestly it is just as much for me.

I have made new friends here myself. But the most beautiful thing is watching the children say goodbye. They don't just say bye, they say we will meet you here again next week. They are already planning their next Sunday together.

We'll be watching to see how the mayor's pledges might come to life in the coming months. My colleague Myra Anubi also spoke to Karima Grant from the Van Leer Foundation, which works on early years development in more than 80 countries. She explained how they help city officials see things from a child's perspective.

We've used things as simple as a periscope to move city leaders around cities to see a city from the perspective of a three-year-old, 95 centimeters. When I do workshops, I ask people, you know, get down, kneel down to 95 centimeters. I would love to see that, a bunch of mayors and leaders on their knees. Even better. We've had mayors and their teams work.

Muutamalla kaupungilla ristiriitaajilla ja ristiriitaajilla. Niin kuin 5 kg ristiriitaajalla ristiriitaajalla. Joten, kuten sanoin, he voivat kokeilla perustelua. Mitä se on, kun sinun täytyy mennä kaupungin?

They're not always stoplights. So, of course, many parents are not pushing their kids in strollers. They're carrying this baby on their back. What is it like to dodge in and out of traffic with a baby on your back? Honestly, I've seen this. It's really scary. It's absolutely scary. And it's scary for us even as drivers, because you don't see the young children.

Minun ymmärrykseni, mitä Adissa tapahtuu, on se, että tämä ei vain vaikuta lopputuloihin. Se vaikuttaa kaikkien ministeriöiden, että voidaan ajatella, miten heidän työtään vaikuttaa lapsille. Meillä on vain yhden ympäristön ihmisiä, jotka ovat yhdessä ja työskentelevät yhdessä. Ymmärryksemme, että se on tärkein aika ihmisen kehittämisestä. 0-3. Ja sanoen, että miten me työskentelemme yhdessä, miten me koordinoimme.

To make sure that children who were born in the city of Addis have what they need to thrive, to become the kind of adults we want for Ethiopia and for Africa.

Ymmärtämällä, että kaikkien dollarien kohdalla, jotka on investoitu alkuperäisellä lapsuudella, on 6-17 dollaria palautetta. Puhumme nyt nuorista, mutta myös 20 vuotta myöhemmin nuorista. Kun teemme investointeja, niin kyllä me haluamme tehdä investointeja sanataatioon. Kyllä me haluamme tehdä investointeja asuntoon.

So I think it's not one or the other, but every place where we see cities are battling again, taking an early childhood lens, helps them to also provide for stronger futures for all of its citizens. It's never easy, but sometimes it's possible. Cara McGrant, and you can hear more about efforts to make cities more family friendly on People Fixing the World, wherever you get your podcasts.

Next, to a man who's become known as India's seed warrior. For three decades, Debal Deb has made it his mission to conserve almost one and a half thousand different types of Indian rice, many of which were thought to have been lost. He grows the rice on his farm and he also donates seeds to other farmers free of charge. Debal Deb told Joe Fidgen from the BBC's Outlook program why he feels so strongly about protecting these rare species.

In India alone there used to be 110,000 varieties of rice existing, but more than 90% of this diversity is lost from the farmer's fields. All over the world most of the people actually eat just a handful of varieties of rice. So one instant, one single pest outbreak or a disease outbreak will push this entire species to extinction. For our own food security all over the world, we have to take care of the genetic diversity as much as possible.

This is what triggered my interest and commitment toward saving the rice diversity. I thought that if I wait for some conscious expert for conservation, then it might be too late. We already had lost 90% of this diversity. You decided that this was so important that you were going to quit your job at the WWF and you were going to pursue this and find a way to conserve rice.

What did your colleagues make of that decision? Almost everyone said I was stupid. I was a completely dumb idiot. I only had academic degrees but no intelligence. So that was the major impression of my seniors. But my mother, by that time I had lost my father. But my mother was always in support. She said whatever he decides is the best.

It was quite rewarding because after the end of this project I collected 140 varieties of rice. Extremely rare, not recorded anywhere. Some of these were mentioned in some ancient literature, ancient Bengali literature. But nobody saw them. But I never planned to cultivate them and become a farmer myself. So I donated this stock of these 140 rice varieties to the state government's rice research station. But they refused to take this.

So then I set up a seed bank where farmers would come, whoever needs some kind of special variety of seed, like an aromatic rice variety, small grain, long grain, red grain, all these aromatic ones. Plus the climate resilient varieties, like a variety which is drought tolerant, a variety that is salt tolerant and so on. And farmers are actually really in need of them. So I set up the seed bank.

Ja niin, että ihmiset eri puolilla maailmaa voivat tulla ja vaihtaa kivun. Joten se on tärkeää, että kivu on vaihtunut, että ei ole rahaa vaihtamassa käyntiä. Kyllä. Tämä koko idea oli, että revertitään vanhempiin traditioihin, jotka olivat koko maailman. Emme ole koskaan ostaneet kivuja.

All the farmers all over the world or all lived continents used to exchange seeds. They collected their seeds either from their ancestors or from their neighbors and friends. Hundreds and hundreds of varieties, open exchange, people to people. In 2009, for example, after two cyclones devastated overnight 10,000 hectares of land, overnight became out of production.

India's seed warrior, Debal Debb.