Thousands of people across the continents live through incredible, and sometimes death-defying, feats just to stay alive.

This series of six episodes follows some colourful characters from different parts of the world who take extraordinary risks to earn their daily bread.

In Brazil's Amazon basin, river children race speeding vessels daily in a unique kind of commerce along tributaries that form the main arteries for virtually everything - transportation, commerce and livelihood.

In Pakistan's tribal northwest, truckers dice with dangers of all kinds along a 240km sole supply route across the rugged Lowari Pass, where even the slightest error can be fatal.

In Bolivia's Yungas region, coca harvesters use a web of cables and suspended ancient rusting pulleys strung hundreds of metres above narrow valleys to move goods and people.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, navigating trucks laden with supplies and passengers through huge potholes and flooded dirt roads is an art form.

In Colombia's Andes range, pilots fly decrepit planes over mountainous, dense jungle to deliver food and goods to remote villages isolated from the rest of the world.

In central America, millions of migrants flee the hardship of poverty in their own countries by crossing the river at the border between Guatemala and Mexico, their sights firmly set on the American dream further north.

Do the people featured in this special series have safer options in ensuring their survival? What can be done to reduce the risks? And do you know people risking it all to make a living?