The Documentary Podcast

New Bell Prison in Douala, Cameroon, operates a bit like a city within a city. The facility has its own "taxis" (inmates who hand deliver messages), its own law enforcement (prisoners who help police the facility) and a market. The jail is overcrowded and under-resourced, and the occupants of New Bell have sometimes adapted the jail's overstretched systems to work for them. An on-site music studio and label, Jail Time Records, has also sprung up and found an international audience. Wedaeli Chibelushi, journalist for BBC World Online, Africa, tells the stories of some of the inmates involved.
 In Egypt, Christians are a substantial minority, making up 10 to 15% of the population, but they're not always represented fairly in employment and public life. This month, the case of 13-year-old Makary Younan, who despite his talent was initially passed over for selection by a major Egyptian football academy, has led to a public debate over anti-Christian discrimination. BBC Arabic's Ahmed Omar has the story.
 Wang Jibing, a Chinese food delivery rider in his fifties, has found a huge online following with reflective poems capturing his daily life and routines. Now, he's won one of China's top literary prizes. After growing up poor and doing many different jobs, Wang became a food delivery rider 2019. He often scribbles poems on scraps of paper between deliveries, but the prize he's won is named after poet Lu Xun, seen by many as the father of Chinese literature. Koh Ewe from the BBC's Hong Kong Bureau explains why so many Chinese people have taken him to their hearts.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Ariana Grande says she will be taking ‘a step back’ from public life. The reason, it seems, is the constant public commentary she faces – particularly surrounding her appearance. We bring together fans of the multi-award-winning singer and Oscar nominated actor to discuss the scrutiny facing women in the public eye. We also hear from women who have received abuse after posting on social media, including Ella, a high jump athlete from Finland. “I never imagined when I started doing sports as a little girl there would be a moment when I would receive messages that I should kill myself because I didn’t perform well or that I am the greatest embarrassment Finland has ever had” she says.

In Lithuania, singer Rūgilė Daujotaitė was becoming a familiar face on television. She was performing at major music events, competing for a place at Eurovision, and building a life that, from the outside, appeared successful. But privately, she says she was struggling. Raised in a family shaped by New Age spirituality and occult beliefs, Rūgilė grew up searching for God through a mixture of traditions. As an adult, she moved to Amsterdam to study jazz, became involved in shamanic practices and Santo Daime ceremonies, and began taking ayahuasca - a powerful psychedelic brew used in some religious rituals. Colm Flynn travels to Vilnius to meet Rūgilė in the home where she first encountered many of the ideas that shaped her early life. She reflects on leading retreats, introducing others to practices she has since rejected, and the moment she began reading the Bible and questioning the world she had embraced.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.

In the late '90s, in daring feats of DIY networking on rooftops across Romania’s capital, Bucharest, teenagers are stringing computer cables between tower blocks to share an internet connection. This guerilla infrastructure starts out scrappy, but it sprawls into an impressive improvised network that catches the attention of telecom giants. Told by those who built it, this is the extraordinary story of how a homemade system became the backbone of a city - a reflection of what the internet was meant to be and what it became.

Aviation is being reimagined for a changing planet: Vertical take-off passenger cars for city centres. Hydrogen powered planes for zero carbon travel. Hyper-sonic flights to take the London to Sydney journey to under two hours.
Kelly Latimer, US Aerospace engineer, flight test pilot, and former Flight Test Director of Virgin Galactic; Rob Miller, Net-zero aviation pioneer and Director of the Whittle Lab at Cambridge University, UK and Daniel Moczydlower, president of the Brazilian future aircraft innovators, Embraer-X, join BBC presenter Caroline Steel on stage in London, to discuss their trailblazing work and answer questions from a live audience at the Royal Geographical Society, London.