Marc Silver

Their gourds tell a story — and earn them a living. That gourd in the photo — the one on the left? It is covered with miniature pictures of a potato harvest in Peru. There's even a wee burro hauling the day's crop.

That gourd will sell for around $800.

A curious detail appeared in stories about the death this week of a 17-year-old boy from Ebola.

As The New York Times reported: "Abraham died Sunday in his father's home in a community known as Smell No Taste, a few miles from his mother's home and a short distance ...

The world needs to count its girls!

That's the message that President Obama sent earlier this month when he signed the Girls Count Act into law. Congress had previously approved the act by unanimous vote.

There are 220 million children around the world who are uncounted. They were not ...

A boy, a goat and a lion.

Those are the stars of an award-winning photo called Friendship.

Each year, the international relief and development group InterAction gives a prize to a photo that highlights "the determination of individuals around the globe" and that makes people "feel something." This year's ...

Soda is at the crossroads.

The U.S. is still a world leader in taking the pause that refreshes (and causes weight gain).

But soda drinking is flat or declining in the West. The reasons are many: Health consciousness. Bottled water. Energy drinks.

So the Big Soda companies are spending money ...

Now that's a gaggle of goats!

There are about 700 of them in the video. They belong to the California business Goats R Us, which keeps 8,000 goats on hand, renting them out to graze on brush, thistles and other undesired plants.

This particular herd was on the job ...

When an email arrived the other day promoting an "Interfaith Service Focused on Below the Belt Cancers," I was intrigued.

It turns out Thursday, June 18, is the start of the third "Globe-athon to End Women's Cancers." To kickoff this continuing campaign, there will be two days of events ...

A new survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that sexual violence against children is a global problem.

Seven countries were surveyed from 2007 to 2013. The first was Swaziland, which wanted to assess and address the problem. The rate of sexual violence against girls was ...

It seems the bad news just won't stop coming.

That boat accident in China.

The MERS outbreak in South Korea.

Flooding in the U.S. Flooding in Ghana.

Refugees everywhere.

As a blog that covers global health and development, we are acutely aware of the world's pain.

But our ...

In September, the U.N. will vote to adopt 17 Sustainable Development Goals (aka SDGs). They cover issues like poverty, health and climate change. The idea is to encourage the 192 U.N. member states to establish policies that will make the world a better place over the next 15 years.

At ...

It's a "year of fear" for children.

That's how Gordon Brown put it in a speech this month. He's the former British Prime Minister who is now the U.N. special envoy for global education. And he's worried about kids.

"This is not the year of the child but the ...

So who does drink the most soda in the world, anyway?

That's a question that popped into my mind after the series finale of Mad Men. Ad man Don Draper goes on a hippie retreat, chants some "oms" and then the famous 1971 Coke jingle, sung by an ethnically diverse ...

Like mother, like son.

Lucas Zutt is the 10-year-old son of journalist Donatella Lorch, who frequently contributes to Goats and Soda. They've lived in Kathmandu since June 2013.

Lucas shared his impressions of the earthquake with NPR after it struck. And now he's made a video.

"My mum ...

"How well do today's schools prepare for tomorrow's world?"

That's the question in a new report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. This group administers the Program for International Student Assessment to 15-year-olds in 75 countries. The goal is to find out whether they can use their ...

In just two days, Liberia will celebrate what seemed an impossible dream last summer: the end of its Ebola outbreak.

Saturday, May 9 will mark the 42nd day of no new Ebola cases in the country. A person with Ebola typically shows symptoms within 21 days of exposure. But the ...

The interviewer asks the fresh-faced young woman named Irene: "What do you do here in this village?"

"I am a prostitute," she says.

Wilbur Sargunaraj, who's from India, likes to make videos about village life. He did a series, including a music video, for Goats and Soda last year. ...

Have you ever had an "aha" moment? Suddenly, it becomes clear you have to make a change in your life, and you actually go ahead and do it.

Safeena Husain, 43, has had three "aha" moments. She ran away from home in India to an ashram. She let her fingers ...

The term "living legend" is tossed around so much that it really doesn't have much sway.

But when I had the privilege of hearing Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, England, last week, I knew I was in the presence of ... a living ...

Editor's note: A version of this story ran in April 2014.

Yes, it is true that gardening requires patience.

But face it, we live in an impatient world. And gardeners everywhere were depressed by the brutal and endless winter.

So we are understandably eager to get sowing. And to see ...

A funny thing happened at the 12th Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship last week in Oxford, England.

At this global gathering of activists and change-makers, where conversation often centered on poverty, disease and disaster, there was a session called What's So Funny? The Role of Comedy in Social ...