At just 18, Agnes Aistleitner from Austria was determined to get to the bottom of the Arab Spring and understand the personal stories behind the crisis. So she headed to Cairo – alone – and began filming and asking questions. The resulting film, “State of Revolution,” won the golden Nica at the ARS Electronica festival.

Listen to the report by Kerry Skyring in Linz:

A young filmmaker’s personal take on Arab Spring

Freedom of speech and expression continue to spark debates around the globe: from the release of WikiLeaks files, to caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, and from staging a rock concert in a church to publishing news about minorities. Wherever the issue emerges, it’s often controversial and it often involves the media.

DW examines the background of the various contexts in which freedom of speech and expression is both fought for and restricted.

Check out all the content here.

Mao Ju, 29, was concerned when she found out that many Chinese children don’t read for fun. She founded a free library in Beijing, for migrant children in particular, to help them discover the pleasure of reading. She involves the kids in the management of the library and encourages them to express their own opinions on the library blog.

Listen to the report by Gaia Manco in Beijing:

Empowering Chinese kids with books

Check out the blog that the kids at the library write every day.

Music education can help at-risk kids stay in school and out of drugs and violence, research indicates. And keeping kids off the streets is exactly what the Caacupé Music School, a free, after-school program in Buenos Aires’ 21-24 Shantytown, aims to do. For the past six years, four paid teachers and four volunteers have given lessons in singing, guitar, piano, violin, and a host of other instruments. They hope to instill a love of music in their students and keep them in school.

Listen to the report by Eilis O’Neill in Buenos Aires:

Argentina music school

According to Jonathan Jansen, a renowned professor at the University of the Free State, thousands of children fail in South Africa’s poor education system every year. However, 26-year-old Lonwabo and several other young men are trying to counter that with a non-profit organization they founded, called Unako. They provide mentorship to school children and also help schools in poor communities to build libraries.

Listen to the report by Faatimah Hendricks in Cape Town:

Opening doors for Cape Town kids

We just discovered this blog on youths around the world who are making a difference. If you know someone changing their community, tell us about them!

Here’s the Youth Making a Difference blog.

Twin brothers Clifford and Rene Bouma stand out in their community in northern Cameroon. Not only are they accomplished rappers, they’re also albinos – a rare condition affecting people from all ethnic backgrounds where the skin lacks pigmentation. In Cameroon, albinos still face a great deal of discrimination, based on fear and misinformation. Clifford and Rene, both 25, use their music to restore their own self-confidence, encourage tolerance, and give hope to other albinos around the world. Today, they are both university students: Clifford studies anthropology and Rene political science.

Listen to the report from Ngala Killian Chimtom in Yaounde, Cameroon:

Rapper twins shrug off stigma of albinism

Elnura Emilkanova, 27, from Kyrgyzstan – a small, land-locked country in Central Asia. Once part of the Soviet Union, this mountainous region of former nomads is one of the poorest countries in the region and has seen its fair share of political instability and ethnic strife in recent years. But it has a burgeoning civil society too. Elnura devotes her life to empowering Kyrgyzstan’s blind population, drawing experience and inspiration from her frequent travels abroad. She’s now involved in advocacy work in the capital Bishkek, helping to train the blind to become leaders.

Listen to the skype interview by Rob Cameron:

Elnura

Sinu, 30, from Bangalore, gave up a promising engineering career to give back to her community. She is now on a mission to keep adolescent girls in school by promoting awareness about the taboo topic of menstruation.

Listen to the report by Pia Chandavarkar in Bangalore:

An ear for adolescent girls in Bangalore

When Philip von der Wippel, a 16-year-old German exchange student in the UK, met Ibrahim, a fellow high-school student originally from Syria, neither ever guessed their friendship would lead them to Nr 10 Downing Street, the iconic office of Britain’s Prime Minister. Now, the campaign they started – to raise awareness about the atrocities taking place in Syria as the country slips slides towards civil war – is going global, thanks in part to the support of Prime Minister Cameron.

Listen to the report by Anja Küppers-McKinnon in London:

Young German voice for Syria

Here is the Facebook page for Philip’s organization, Together We Can for Syria.