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Amy Costello

Amy Costello is a former Africa correspondent for PRI’s The World. She now hosts Tiny Spark, a podcast that investigates the business of doing good.

Amy Costello is a former Africa correspondent for PRI’s The World. She now hosts Tiny Spark, a podcast that investigates the business of doing good. Tiny Spark takes a critical look at seemingly good ideas and asks tough questions of well-intentioned people and programs, whether medical volunteers in post-quake Haiti or the social entrepreneur behind TOMS Shoes. Amy has worked as an NPR producer and adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, her alma mater. Her FRONTLINE/World television investigation “Sudan: The Quick and the Terrible” was nominated for an Emmy Award.

Illustration

Women in the global aid sector are saying #AidToo

Conflict

It’s their version of #MeToo — unfortunately, sexual harassment and abuse are all too common in the humanitarian aid sector.

Shannon Mouillesseaux

After sexual assault, this former aid worker found little help from UN

Conflict
Sign

The Oxfam scandal shows that reform is needed in the humanitarian aid sector

Conflict
Children holding plates wait in a queue to receive food at an orphanage run by a non-governmental organisation in the southern Indian city of Chennai.

Before you write out checks on Giving Tuesday, consider this

Finance
Children queue for aid at a makeshift center erected by a charity in an earthquake-damaged district of Padang, Indonesia's West Sumatra, 2009.

Discussion: How do you know that your holiday giving is going to the right place?

Development
Dr. Gary Slutkin and Autry Phillips. Slutkin says when it comes to gun violence, he doesn't like the terms perpetrator and victim.

Can we decrease gun violence by treating it like an infectious disease? Signs point to yes

Conflict

When infectious disease expert Dr. Gary Slutkin returned to the US after years of working abroad on HIV, cholera and TB, he was struck by how much the spread of gun violence here reminded him of the spread of disease.

Volunteer Health Worker

Thousands of health workers in Senegal receive no pay. Is that fair?

Health & Medicine

In many developing countries, thousands of volunteers serve as community health workers. But who is looking after their interests? Amy Costello reports from the West African nation of Senegal.

Nelson Mandela, the man who brought South Africa out of apartheid, dies at 95

Global Politics

Nelson Mandela fought the forces of apartheid for years, and was thrown in jail for his efforts. On Thursday, he died peacefully in his home.

Relief supplies for Haiyan victims

Read these 3 tips before you offer help to the victims of Typhoon Haiyan

Environment

It’s hard to see the devastation in the Philippines without wanting to do something to help. Reporter Amy Costello covers the business of doing good and has this advice for helping.

Jennifer Hemsley, adoptive mother.

International Adoption: When Altruism Becomes Industry

Development & Education

The US leads the world in the number of children adopted from abroad. Critics say this unending demand for infants from poor nations – together with the huge sums American families are willing to pay – transformed an altruistic act into an industry plagued by corruption, kidnapping, and fraud.