\n<\/p>\n
A teenager jailed in Egypt, determined to bear witness to the abuses<\/a> he suffered during years of detention. A proponent of peace in Colombia, shadowed by death threats<\/a>. A father in India, fighting his own patriarchal impulses<\/a> to give his two daughters a better life.<\/p>\n With reports from six continents<\/a> and 34 countries, the Saturday Profile in 2023 revealed people making a difference<\/a>, mostly under the radar. Every week, our correspondents often sought out not the famous nor the powerful, but the unheralded<\/a> with stories worth hearing<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Muslim cleric in Ukraine, now a medic on the front lines<\/a> of the war. An anticorruption whistle-blower in Bangkok<\/a>, with (he\u2019d be the first to admit) a disreputable past. A scientist and hair salon owner in Paris, dedicated to styling curly hair<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some of our subjects spoke to top news trends, like Africa\u2019s first heat officer<\/a>; an ex-fisherman devoted to persuading fellow Senegalese not to migrate to Europe<\/a>; and a rap producer in France, who lost his voice to A.L.S. and was experimenting with artificial intelligence<\/a> to replace it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Using an ultralight aircraft, Johannes Fritz once taught endangered ibises a migration path over the Alps. Because of climate change, he decided he had to use the same innovative method to show them a much longer route to a winter\u2019s refuge, or the birds, which had once died out entirely from the wild, would disappear a second time.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo or three years, and they\u2019d be extinct again,\u201d Mr. Fritz said.<\/p>\n \u2014 By Denise Hruby, photographs by Nina Riggio<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Lisa LaFlamme was dismissed after a decades-long TV career, not long after she had stopped dyeing her hair, setting off debates across Canada about sexism, ageism and going gray.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe most comments I ever received were not for months in Baghdad or Afghanistan, or any story, but when I let my hair grow gray \u2014 bar none,\u201d Ms. LaFlamme said. \u201cAnd I will say this, 98 percent positive, except a couple of men and a woman \u2014 it\u2019s funny that I can actually remember that \u2014 but they were summarily destroyed on social media because women do support women.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 By Norimitsu Onishi, photographs by Ian Willms<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Standing onstage in a dark auditorium in front of 2,000 fans in central Tokyo, Shinjiro Atae, a J-pop idol, revealed something he has kept hidden for most of his life: He is gay.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want people to struggle like me,\u201d Mr. Atae said, making an announcement that is extremely unusual in conservative Japan.<\/p>\n \u2014 By Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida, photographs by Noriko Hayashi<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After filming her part in \u201cBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever,\u201d Mar\u00eda Mercedes Coroy returned to her life of farming and trading in a Guatemalan town at the base of a volcano.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople ask me what I do after filming,\u201d Ms. Coroy said. \u201cI go back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 By Julia Lieblich, photographs by Daniele Volpe<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After 17 years in France, Tharshan Selvarajah has yet to apply for citizenship. But he has made bread for President Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He said it\u2019s his hands that make his bread special.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother\u2019s chicken curry and my wife\u2019s chicken curry may use the same chicken but they do not taste the same,\u201d he said. \u201cGod gave me the hands to make the best baguette in France! I am never angry with the flour as I knead the dough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 By Roger Cohen, photographs by Dmitry Kostyukov<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Fighting for change has cost Narges Mohammadi her career, separated her from family and deprived her of liberty. But a jail cell has not succeeded in silencing her.<\/p>\n \u201cI sit in front of the window every day, stare at the greenery and dream of a free Iran,\u201d Ms. Mohammadi said in a rare and unauthorized telephone interview from inside Evin Prison in Tehran. \u201cThe more they punish me, the more they take away from me, the more determined I become to fight until we achieve democracy and freedom and nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n