WORKING

Series produced by Homelands Productions

Caption: Metal worker, Peru, Credit: Santiago Bustamante Mujica
Image by: Santiago Bustamante Mujica 
Metal worker, Peru 

WORKING is a series of intimate, sound-rich profiles of workers in the global economy. It was broadcast as a special monthly feature on Marketplace Radio between 2007 and 2009. WORKING won the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Radio Feature Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Working. It's what most of us do for half our waking lives. It's how we feed and clothe ourselves and how we support our families. It shapes our sense of who we are, and of where we fit in the scheme of things.

Working is also what connects us. Almost everything around us is the product of human labor—much of it performed in faraway places, by people we will never meet.

Each WORKING profile brings us deep into the life of a single worker in the global economy—real people with real families, real struggles, real dreams, and real jobs.

The project has created an interactive tool called the Worker Browser (http://working.homelands.org) to give members of the public a chance to share and compare their own work experiences. Audio, photos and reporter's notebooks for the profiles are available there.

29 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: Valdet Dule, 31, Kosovo, Credit: Dana Wilson
Sandy Tolan profiles a man from Kosovo who spends his days clearing landmines from the Kosovo-Albanian border.

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis, PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, WBEZ, and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 08:38
  • Purchases: 5
Caption: Pedro Córdoba Valdivieso, Peru, Credit: Jon Miller
Jon Miller profiles a worker in a giant smelter in the Peruvian Andes who is suffering from an incurable lung disease.

Bought by PRX Remix and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 08:23
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Tarek Haidar Eskandar, Lebanon, Credit: Kelly McEvers
Kelly McEvers profiles a fixer for journalists visiting Lebanon.

Bought by PRX Remix and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 07:28
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Diana Ivanova Dimova, Bulgaria, Credit: Elena Nenkova
Sandy Tolan profiles an aspiring young pop singer in Bulgaria whose true love is traditional music.

Bought by PRX Remix, Marfa Public Radio, and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 08:12
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Laowang, China, Credit: Cui Xinyu
Sandy Tolan profiles a driver for a Chinese express mail company whose real passions are his daughter and his pigeons.

Bought by PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, Third Coast Festival/Re:sound (Outside Purchaser), and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 06:40
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: Chanta Nguon, Cambodia, Credit: Kris Boutillier
Rachel Louise Snyder profiles a former Cambodian exile who returned to start a silk factory employing local women.

Bought by PRX Remix and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 06:14
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Blair Ghent, Canada, Credit: Chris Brookes
Chris Brookes profiles a Canadian oil worker and his wife who live apart for weeks at a time.

Bought by New Hampshire Public Radio, PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, Third Coast Festival/Re:sound (Outside Purchaser), and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 08:02
  • Purchases: 5
Caption: Romulo Greham, Honduras, Credit: Tomás Donoso
Claudine LoMonaco profiles a Miskito Indian from Honduras who nearly died as a result of his work diving for lobsters for the US market.

Bought by Marfa Public Radio, PRX Remix, Third Coast Festival/Re:sound (Outside Purchaser), and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 06:48
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: Sam Ahmedu, Nigeria, Credit: Jon Miller
Jon Miller profiles an NBA scout from Nigeria who scours Africa for talent.

Bought by New Hampshire Public Radio, PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, WBEZ, KRUA and more


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 06:33
  • Purchases: 6
Caption: Marco Moreno Gonzales, Peru, Credit: Jon Miller
Jon Miller profiles a Peruvian man who has worked in textile factories since he was a teenager and who is now trying to open his own.

Bought by PRX Remix, WBEZ, PRX to iTunes, and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 07:18
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: Gordana Jankuloska, Macedonia, Credit: Dana Wilson
Sandy Tolan profiles the thirtysomething interior minister of Macedonia, whose job is to clean up her country's notoriously corrupt security forces.

Bought by PRX Remix, WBEZ, and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 05:41
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Chloé Doutre-Roussel, Credit: Kate Malone
Jon Miller profiles an eccentric French woman whose job is to travel the world tasting chocolate.

Bought by KFAI Minneapolis, The Story, Prairie Public, PRX Remix, KUOW and more


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 07:24
  • Purchases: 8
Caption: Wahid Khan Habibula, Saudi Arabia, Credit: Kelly McEvers
Kelly McEvers profiles an Indian cargo agent whose job is to repatriate the remains of foreign workers who die in in Saudi Arabia.

Bought by PRX Remix, WBEZ, and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 05:59
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Hussein Ralib Esfandiari, Dubai, Credit: Tamara Abdul Hadi
Kelly McEvers profiles an Iranian trader who ferries goods in a wooden dhow from Dubai across the Persian Gulf to Iran.

Bought by PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 06:39
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen, Nigeria, Credit: Jon Miller
Jon Miller profiles one of the most prolific directors in Nigeria's booming Nollywood home video industry.

Bought by Marfa Public Radio, PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, WMNF, WAMC Northeast Public Radio and more


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 07:14
  • Purchases: 9
Caption: Mohmen, Pakistan, Credit: Gregory Warner
Gregory Warner profiles a teenager from a village in rural Pakistan who works in a dead-end job in a tannery in Karachi.

Bought by WBEZ, PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 07:21
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: Whyman Richards, Canada, Credit: Aaron Beswick
Janna Graham profiles a lifelong fisherman from northern Newfoundland who gathers ice from passing icebergs for a novelty bottled water company.

Bought by New Hampshire Public Radio, WRPI, PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, and KUOW


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 06:58
  • Purchases: 5
Caption: Samanta, Azerbaijan, Credit: Kelly McEvers
Kelly McEvers profiles a transgender sex worker from Kyrgyzstan who works in the oil boomtown of Baku, in Azerbaijan.

Bought by WDBM, PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes, KFAI Minneapolis, and Remix Radio


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 07:27
  • Purchases: 5
Caption: Raffaella Mangiarotti, Italy, Credit: Laila Pozzo
Jon Miller profiles an Italian industrial designer who puts new twists on ordinary household objects.

Bought by 'The Sea', PRX Remix, and PRX to iTunes


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 06:51
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Agus Laodi, Indonesia, Credit: Kelly McEvers
Kelly McEvers profiles a small-time pirate who robs ships in Indonesia's Strait of Malacca.

Bought by XRAY.fm, KFAI Minneapolis, HowSound, PRX Remix, PRX to iTunes and more


  • Added: May 27, 2009
  • Length: 06:47
  • Purchases: 6