The skateboarders of Bolivia’s Imilla Skate do their heel flips and backslides in polleras — colorful, layered skirts worn by the country’s Indigenous Aymara and Quechua population. “By skating in polleras, we want to show that girls and women can do anything, no matter how you look or how people see you,” says Daniela Santiváñez, who founded the group with two friends in 2019.
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A picture, they say, is worth 1,000 words. So we will try to use as few words as possible in this introduction to a sampling of our favorite photo posts of 2024.
This year’s round up includes dramatic drone images of the world’s “foodscapes,” an intimate look at families striving to provide healthy meals for their kids and exuberant Bolivian women skateboarding in their traditional bowler hats.
Toyin feeds her 3-year-old daughter, Kudirat, while her husband, Saheed, tends to their other two children.
Sope Adelaja for NPR
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Sope Adelaja for NPR
How 9 families cope when they can’t afford 3 healthy meals a day for the kids
At a one-day workshop run by the Care School for Men in Bogotá, Colombia, male medical students at Sanitas University learn how to cradle a baby. This class of participants consists of medical students, but the usual enrollees are dads of all types.
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Hey, guys, wanna know how to diaper a baby or make a ponytail? Try the School for Men
Bolivian skateboarders at the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
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Ben de la Cruz/NPR
Indigenous pride. Bowler hats. Meet an all-female Bolivian skateboarding crew
Paramedic Papinki Lebelo waits for a police escort before responding to an emergency call-out a Cape Town neighborhood. Due to a rise in attacks on paramedics, ambulance crews in large parts of the city will only go out when they have a police escort.
Tommy Trenchard for NPR
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Tommy Trenchard for NPR
Paramedic Papinki Lebelo waits for a police escort before responding to an emergency call-out a Cape Town neighborhood. Due to a rise in attacks on paramedics, ambulance crews in large parts of the city will only go out when they have a police escort.
Tommy Trenchard for NPR
‘There is no respect anymore’ as ambulances come under attack in South Africa
The African nation of Mauritania was a land of pastoral nomads when it gained independence from France in 1960, but it has since become a nation of fishermen as well, with hundreds of pirogues lining the beach of the capital of Nouakchott.
George Steinmetz
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George Steinmetz
A drone’s eye view of ‘foodscapes,’ from cattle to soybeans to shrimp
An aerial photo shows horses foraging on a section of the now-demolished Agbogbloshie Scrapyard site in Accra, Ghana.
Muntaka Chasant
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Muntaka Chasant
Stunning photos of a vast e-waste dumping ground — and those who make a living off it
