by Dyna Faid After serving their country for years, Muhammad Naeemi and Luftallah Lufti were prepared to face the fall of their government, making the necessary arrangements to keep the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations open. Unexpected…
Smuggling guns is easier than buying notebooks
by Camila Hidalgo An increase in deadly riots within the most dangerous prisons in Ecuador has exposed a corrupt penal system and has revealed some of the dark reality of organized crime in the country. José, an inmate at El…
With A Small Bottle of Garden’s Soil, Massoud Left Afghanistan
by Nazila Jamshidi With the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, images and stories of the tragic rush of Afghans escaping the Taliban flooded the media across the world. The image of the gray military plane…
Profile: Linda Lee
by Avery Kim By 1 p.m., Linda Lee has taken her two young sons to school, gone to work in eastern Queens, and driven roundtrip to and from the Bronx to meet with a future New York City Council Member.…
The system is working exactly as it is intended
How the US asylum system uses a health regulation to racially discriminate by Dorothea Koehn “Title 42 is an obscure policy,” is one of the first things Jonathan Goldman, executive director of the Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice, told me…
Who Builds Peace
by Michael Thomson Although the address locates the peacebuilding organization where I interned in a plaza, it is actually just another nine-story mass of the limestone, reflective glass, and rebar that dominates central Amman. The security guard at the front…
Another Hebron Story
by Michael Thomson After work on an unusually quiet night, as I walk to my Palestinian host family’s residence nestled in the middle of the anarchic web of limestone buildings that make up Hebron’s Old City, I listen for any…
The Real War is On the Streets
by Courtney Manning After being imprisoned in Pakistan, former computer scientist Iman returns to New York to discover many things are different, including himself. Part I: New York Iman Reza is full of charisma, but would rather predict the futures…
Grown From Concrete: landscaping identity through art in East Oakland
by Rudrani Ghosh Nimrod Cain is an artist, born and raised in East Oakland, California. His art and music tell stories of his journey as a father, his quest to uplift his culture and community, and life in an urban…
Perils and Perseverance; a refugee’s story of finding a home and purpose in the world
by Mark J. Wood Mondiant has spent his life as a refugee. With some luck he made it to New York, where he now feels a responsibility to all those who are still refugees. In the back of a New…
Lost Decade for Syrian Activists
By Asaad Hanna March 15, 2011, marks the Syrian “Day of Rage,” triggered by the detention of children in Dara and inspired by the hopes unleashed in the Arab Spring. This was the day when protests began in Syria against…
Exile in America Brings Feelings Of Grief and Opportunity For Afghan Women
By Nazila Jamshidi Some Afghan women drastically reinvented their lives after the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001. They became journalists, thought leaders, business owners, and professors. This summer, many of them had to flee when the Taliban returned to power. Their…
Remembering a Palestine No Longer There
Published in NewLines Magazine. For Palestinian-Americans, nostalgia means longing for a home they’ll never know, and their parents can only dimly recall By Tariq Kenney-Shawa have only seen my father cry twice. The first time, I was eight years old,…
When the New Guy Came to Afghanistan
BY KYLE STARON MARCH 02, 2021 Published in Slate The New Guy seemed dazed as he toured the office with his predecessor. Tall and hunched, like a pro athlete five years into retirement, the New Guy looked too old to be…
Amma: A story about generational trauma, the honor system, and love
By S Zahra Fatima Shah The Amma I remember is small yet stout, old and grey, how grandmothers are described in books. I remember her as the distant mother to my father. The slightly acerbic mother-in-law to my mother. The…
Photography is a Relationship First, Then Something Else
By Hannah Stoddard It was August and Dina Oganova was five years old. She and her mother had escaped Tbilisi’s humid afternoons and retreated to Borjomi, a popular mountain town famous for its mineral springs and lush scenery. They rented…
Wuhan Regains Vitality, but Its Residents’ Mental Health Recovery Deserves Attention
Psychic Scars Linger in Wuhan after COVID-19 Subsides By CHRISSY ZHU Gutian Bridge, Wuhan, China. Photo: Chen. The traditional Qixi Festival usually comes at the end of August in the Gregorian calendar. In modern Chinese culture, people celebrate this day…
Leaving Beirut: Finding God in a Broken Land
By FARIHA WASTI Fadia Nassar’s past keeps her rooted in Beirut’s homeland and is a part of her identity now, in the United States. Surviving 14 years through a Civil War in Lebanon, her faith gave her the courage to…
Armenia’s New Diaspora Generation Has its Say
By SEVITA RAMA Danica Harootian at the Report the Truth protest and march. Photo: Sanan Panossian. Sanan Panossian, a 28-year-old Armenian-American from San Francisco, California, has activism in her genes. She grew up in the largest Armenian diaspora community in…
Japan Invests in a New Drinking Water Well in Rural Afghanistan
By KAORU NAGASAWA The water and sanitation management system in Afghanistan is worsening due to climate change, which has caused lots of rainfall, flash floods, and clogging of these management systems. Japan Emergency NGO (JEN), is one of the few…
A Civil War’s ‘Silver Lining’
By JORDAN LESSER-ROY In Yemen’s civil war, the governorate of Marib and its youth activists challenge the idea that war must mean total destruction. In March 2015, Sadam Al-Adwar boarded a plane from Pakistan to return to his native Yemen.…
The Occupation Hurts Everyone, Israelis Included
By YVETTE DEANE In the West Bank, Benzion Sanders is outfitted in an IDF uniform as part Nahal Brigade. Source: Benzion Sanders Staring through the slit of his ski mask at the enemy – a 17-year-old Palestinian, handcuffed, blindfolded, and…
Still Here: John Muster of Mentoring Academy
By BENJAMIN BARTU In a Berkeley church, past earth-toned pews, beneath a foyer reserved for community events and club gatherings, on the other side of the wall from a soup kitchen that promises a free chicken curry meal come Friday,…
Explainer: Can Online War Lead to Real War?
BY JENNIFER KELTZ In September, a drone attack crippled vital chokepoints in Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. This attack, which the United States and Saudi Arabia blamed on Iran, is not an isolated incident: it occurred amidst rising tensions in a…
I AM BRAINWASHED (OR NOT): A MONOLOGUE
BY MINQI SONG Nov 15, 2019. I woke up at 6 a.m, and checked my phone as usual. The first message was from Julie, sent ten minutes earlier. Julie is a core leader of Education Without Barriers (EWB), an education…