Humanitarian Rick Burns, a retired civil affairs officer in the U.S. Army, has been helping people in the war-torn countries of Afghanistan and Iraq since 2003. He's seen a lot of good, but he's also seen what happens when good intentions go awry. Take the fertile grounds of Arghandab River Valley in Afghanistan, for example. Burns recalls an initiative to help fruit exporters become profitable again after the war. Cold storage facilities were built, but because no one considered the country's spotty electricity, the facilities ended up being too expensive to maintain. "We really want to make...

At the age of 17, Jennifer was sleeping on the streets of Atlanta. She'd felt abandoned most of her life, unprotected from her brothers and her mother's boyfriends, who physically and sexually abused her since she was five. And now, kicked out of her house, Jennifer - whose last name is withheld for privacy - was alone and vulnerable. She was soon lured into sex trafficking and was unable to escape for two years. Then she found Covenant House. "Studies have shown that if a young person ends up on the street, within 48 hours someone is going to approach them with the intention of exploiting...