Everyman

Seven years ago Julia Knowles decided to set up a home for severely handicapped young people. So she set about raising the necessary quarter-of-a-million pounds and 18 months ago she succeeded. Martha House in Deal is now a loving home for eight young people, all of them severely handicapped, mentally and physically, all of them needing the constant care and attention of the 25 full-time staff. But Martha House still needs nearly £1,000 a week from charitable donations to keep it going. As a nation we are giving more and more to charity, but as demands on our generosity increase, how many more causes can we sustain? And what happens to the young people in Martha House if the giving stops?

Beelzebub... Ashtaroth.... Satan.... Lucifer: the Devil has many names and many guises, and he's been part of Jewish, Christian and Muslim culture for over 5,000 years. Everyman follows his tracks, from Mexican devil masks to an exorcism in Surrey, from Milton's Paradise Lost to the short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, and shows how his shape and meaning change according to the culture - even the person - in which he finds himself.

On 17 June 1987, the American journalist Charles Glass was kidnapped by Shi'ite gunmen in Beirut. After 62 days he escaped, closing the book on an association with a country and a people lasting 15 years. He cannot go back. But in this film he offers a personal impression of the most memorable moments in those years. He takes us behind the news to the realities of violence, the endurance of the people, the best and worst of the place. He provides a picture of a world whose slow disintegration he witnessed until finally he became its victim.

Every autumn, pilgrims arrive in thousands at a building in Brooklyn, New York. Members of a worldwide movement known as the Lubavitch Chabad, they come to ask advice and blessing from their leader, the 'Rebbe', whom some believe could be the Messiah. The Lubavitch are Hassidic Jews who preserve traditions and rituals which go back hundreds of years. Yet they also thrive in the modern world, active in local politics and influential in the politics of Israel. This Everyman film provides an insight into an extraordinary movement and the reasons for its power.

Elaine and Michael Counsell 's 5-year-old son was killed by a drunken driver. Five members of Colin Caffell 's family were shot dead. Catherine Hill was held hostage, then mutilated by a hand grenade, in the Karachi hijack. Ruth Fuller 's 19-year-old son was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack. Can victims ever come to forgive the people who have devastated their lives? Jenni Murray talks to these five individuals. They each explain what they think about forgiveness and how they now feel towards the person responsible.

We have become the displaced - refugees in our own land. Almost six years of civil war in Sudan have devastated a generation: hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes. Many have died from hunger. Many have been murdered. Children have been stolen from their parents. Voices of Sorrow reveals the magnitude of the human tragedies caused by the conflict and explains why the north and south of Sudan are unable to live together in peace.

'I was standing on a street corner and a man walked up to me and asked if I was an American soldier. I said, "Yes, I am." Hesaid, "Hello, I'm the enemy: I was the Viet Cong. " ' That remarkable encounter took place on the streets of Hanoi during a tour of Vietnam by ten US combat veterans. More Vietnam veterans have committed suicide since the war than died during it. For 20 years, thousands have lived with the trauma of that war. The tour was a radical attempt to deal with the trauma, by taking veterans back to the country where it all began. This is the story of that journey.

'I think cancer is just an illness, I think tuberculosis is just an illness, I think AIDS is just an illness. But we know that certain illnesses become the vessels of fantasy and anxiety: they become metaphoric.' The arrival of AIDS has uncovered fears and prejudices which have been associated with plagues and epidemics throughout history. With so much dread surrounding it, how can people find their way to a rational assessment of the disease? In this richly-textured film, Susan Sontag, the distinguished American writer, joins with Jonathan Miller, Bishop Richard Holloway and others to explore these dark images and to look for a way out of them.

'If a bird can have a nest and a fox can have a den, then why can't the sen of man have a roof over his head?' In 1984, the American government allowed an abandoned building near Capitol Hill in Washington to be used as a shelter. Despite being nearly derelict, the building soon housed 800 homeless people. But a series of bureaucratic delays prevented the building being restored and led ultimately to an eviction notice. The four-year battle against the Government was to bring the plight of the homeless to national attention. The campaign was led by Mitch Snyder , a dedicated but awkward figure prepared to risk his life in the struggle.

This year in Tibet, new riots against Chinese rule led to many deaths and the imposition of martial law. Tourists were expelled, but brought back eyewitness accounts and dramatic new pictures. Tibetan refugees in India also tell their tragic stories of life in Tibet, 30 years after the great Tibetan uprising against the Chinese. Exiled in India, the former God-king ruler of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, and 100,000 followers have rebuilt their monasteries and kept alive their ancient religion. Their government-in-exile patiently awaits a recall to Tibet. But will it ever come? Tibet, for all the power of its religion and nationalism, may already be the latest in a long line of small nations swallowed up by powerful neighbours.

'I pray for people in Ethiopia ... and I do have a best friend who's got eczema and it's irritating her and I pray it gets better.' Just like that 10-year-old, believers and unbelievers pray for extra power in times of difficulty. Each faith reveals its personality in the way requests are made. But perhaps God shouldn't intervene if our freedom matters. What's more, if help comes for some worthy cases, why not for others? Some find it helpful to think of prayer releasing what's in nature rather than calling in power from outside. In spite of the puzzles, asking comes naturally and people feel it helps.

On 17 June 1987, the American journalist Charles Glass was kidnapped by Shi'ite gunmen in Beirut. After 62 days he escaped, closing the book on an association with a country and a people lasting 15 years. He cannot go back. But in this film he offers a personal impression of the most memorable moments in those years. He takes us behind the news to the realities of violence, the endurance of the people, the best and worst of the place. He provides a picture of a world whose slow disintegration he witnessed until finally he became its victim. One of the best and most heart-rending documentaries I've ever seen.

"It's not raving maniacs who take other people's lives, it's people who are inadequate to the stresses of life and finally crumple in an awful, destructive way." Eight years ago, Graham would never have thought he was capable of killing anyone. He is still struggling to understand why he did. The popular belief is that a typical murderer is a violent maniac who will kill again if not locked away. In reality, three murderers out of four are husbands, wives, lovers or children who fail to cope with difficult events. In this programme, two men who have been tried for murder talk about the family pressures which led them to kill.

On 7 December 1988, Soviet Armenia suffered a devastating earthquake. It was a catastrophic end to a year of political protests there which had put Gorbachev's reforms to their severest test. Yet it is not just in the Soviet Union that the Armenians have made their mark. In the West they have tried to get official recognition for what they regard as their greatest tragedy: the events of 1915 when they claim the Turks tried to wipe out their people. It is a claim the Turks have always denied. This film follows the fortunes of a people whose grievances have become a political factor East and West, a people who refuse to be ignored.

Toby was born in Nottingham on 15 January 1987, a normal healthy non-identical twin. At three months he developed Reyes syndrome and suffered severe brain damage. His twin sister was unaffected. At 11 months, Toby's parents had to face the agonising fact that they were unable to care for him themselves. This decision brought relatives, foster parents, social services and a charitable home in Kent into Toby's life. Everyman looks at the dilemmas faced by everyone concerned in trying to decide what is best for Toby.

Twenty-two years ago this week, Israel defeated her Arab neighbours in the Six-Day-War and took control of the Gaza strip: 140 square miles of land, with a Palestinian population which is now 650,000. This was the beginning of Israeli occupation. Eighteen months ago this week, violence broke out on the streets of Gaza: the Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, was born. Everyman tells the story of the people who live and work under occupation: Palestinians and Israelis - the occupied and the occupiers. At the heart of this film is a committed Christian, Dr Swee Chai Ang, who, after six years of work in Lebanon, has come to work in Gaza's Ahli Arab hospital.

Samuel Oliner was the only one of his family to survive the Holocaust. A Polish peasant risked her life to save him. For the last seven years, Oliner has been collecting stories from people who rescued Jews in the Second World War. It is a project inspired by a personal debt of gratitude and a desire to recover the light of human decency from the blackness of Nazi-occupied Europe. In Rescuers Speaking, dramatised by Wilfred Harrison from Oliner's research, actors retell the true stories of some of those anonymous heroes.

While much of Eastern Europe is looking towards democratic reform, President Ceausescu's Romania is pointing in the opposite direction. Traditional village communities are being destroyed, food is severely rationed and women of childbearing age are required to have at least five children. Romanians believe the rumour that one in five people is an informer for the securitate, the secret police. Filmed secretly inside Romania with tourist cameras, and in Hungary with refugees who have escaped across the border, this special edition of Everyman reports on the victims of President Ceausescu's reign of terror, in particular the people of Transylvania who are struggling against the odds to preserve their cultural identity.

Summer 1940: Britain faces the Nazis alone. Amid fears of blanket bombing and probable invasion, plans are afoot for a mass evacuation of British schoolchildren to safety in the Dominions and the USA. Fifty years on, the good intentions stand against a political background of muddle and cynicism. Was Churchill right to scorn the plan as defeatist? Was it safe to send evacuees across a North Atlantic full of German U-boats? Were the children used as pawns to increase American sympathy for the British war effort? How changed would they be when they returned? In this Everyman special, the parents who sent children, foster families who offered their homes, and the 'young ambassadors' themselves tell their stories.

For 20 years, thousands have lived with the trauma of the Vietnam war. A tour of Vietnam by ten US combat veterans was a radical attempt to deal with the trauma by taking them back to where it all began.

Sally is a grandmother in her 50s. She has AIDS-related complex. There are 1,300 women in Britain who are known to be carrying the human immuno-deficiency virus, HIV. Up to ten times as many may be infected and still undiagnosed. Unlike Sally, many are in their 20s and 30s and they want children. But there's a 25 per cent chance that a positive mother will pass the virus on to her child. Is this a risk she's entitled to take? And what about the fact that she may not live to see her children grow up? Some of the women who have been caught in this tragic dilemma talk to Sarah Dunant about the choices they have made, and about what it means to be an HIV-positive woman.

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled 16 years ago in 'Roe v Wade' that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion in early pregnancy, pro-life groups have been campaigning to overturn the ruling. Now, as the Court reconsiders its decision, the pro-choice lobby is fighting back. Everyman dicusses this major political issue with Sarah Weddington , the lawyer in Roe v Wade.

This week, after 16 years of military rule, Chileans will elect a successor to General Pinochet. During those years hundreds 'disappeared' and thousands were tortured by the military. Should Chile, like some other Latin American countries, grant amnesties to the torturers, or punish them? Through the testimony of three people - a member of a military death squad, a woman tortured by the same squad, and the widow of a man they murdered - lain Guest explores the dilemma facing Chileans.

A series of brutal murders has recently paralysed a rebel sect of over 100,000 fundamentalist Mormons in the US who practise polygamy as a way of showing devotion to God. The murderers justify these killings by quoting the doctrine of 'blood atonement', which allows the spilling of blood to avenge sins. Everyman examines the effect these killings have had on the fundamentalist Mormon community, and interviews former sect members, including one woman who admits she carried out 'blood atonement'. Where is the line to be drawn between fundamentalism and fanaticism?