In Mozambique, there was local distrust of the health clinic. A woman did come into the health clinic to deliver her child but both she and the child died in childbirth. The doctor, Hans Rosling, felt terrible and worried that he would never regain the trust of the people in the surrounding villages. But he learned that it was important for him to return the bodies to the village for a proper burial as a sign of respect for the local culture.

In Senegal, young girls usually had to go through a painful process deeply embedded in the culture of their society that served no purpose, and had been going on generation after generation. Girls and women were advocating for an end to this practice of female genital cutting. But their pleas were not enough to convince men throughout the country to stop this traditional cultural practice.

Partners in Health (PIH) is a non-profit global health organization established by Paul Farmer, Jim Kim, and three colleagues to bring health care to the poorest people in low-income countries. PIH believed that these people deserve healthcare that was as good as the healthcare that rich people in the most advanced countries received. They found that poor people living in a shanty town outside of Lima, Peru had very high rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB), a disease that was notoriously hard to treat.