From Barefoot to shoe-bearer, the story behind a family’s NGO donating shoes to children victims of the ongoing war in DRC. Emmanuel Ntibonera in the US in 2021. Source : Ketura Boko By Ketura Boko Emmanuel, ten years old,…
The Loss of Belonging
Resurging Islamophobia in response to the conflict in Gaza has Nour Bilal reconsidering her newfound sense of home in the US By Abigail Bennett Nour Bilal’s past experiences with the police in her home country of Syria have all led…
Mom, You’re Home
My mom, Nasrin Waris {L} and grandmother, Nurjan Begum {R} in Bangladesh Source: Tasfia Arshad By Tasfia Arshad Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un. ‘Surely to Allah we belong and to Him we will all return’. At the time of…
Sweden: no longer a place of refuge
The Swedish Migration Agency knowingly maintains a culture of abuse in its detention centers. By Maria Thornton Many migrants and asylum seekers dream of safety in Sweden but many find themselves trapped in nightmarish conditions instead. The Swedish Migration Agency,…
‘I Still Have PTSD’: A Year After India’s Devastating Second Covid Wave
How a misplaced sense of complacency and botched government response contributed to a disaster in the country’s capital city. By Raghavi Sharma When Rakesh Bhardwaj and his wife Seema tested positive for COVID-19 on April 17, 2021, days after receiving…
Sourceable and the search for trusted reporting
A new platform aims to reinstill trust in reporting. By Segal Shahaf After Lena witnessed the difficulties Syrian activists had with sharing their stories, she founded Sourceable, a platform that seeks to generate trust between witnesses of human rights abuses…
No Monetary Justice for Pashtun Victims of the War on Terror
Pakistani compensation law for victims of war and terrorism fails to reach many Pashtuns due to weak enforcement, high legal barriers, and lack of political influence for victims. By Shalini Rao In 2016, the Pakistani military blew up Ali Wazir’s…
A Lack of Reflection Cripples Nepal’s Aid Industry
Former expats in Nepal’s foreign aid industry reflect on the identity crises that came with their careers By Nick Kraft Nepal is an aid-dependent country, with aid accounting for 23 percent of its national budget. The money translates into a…
How the bubble broke for one member of the North Korean elite
Seohyun Lee, born and raised in the North Korean elite, decided to leave her comfortable life in North Korea for freedom. By Kaoruko Kobayashi Seohyun Lee and her father in Washington D.C. In April 2012, Seohyun Lee, born and raised…
UN fails to combat climate-security risks in DRC
There is a disconnect between the current United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the climate-security crisis taking place there, which is being further exacerbated by a new land auction. By Sophie Jay Deforestation is an…
Safety of Multimedia Journalists Called Into Question
By Cinnamon Cornell Cindy Bae was standing outside a bar on New Year’s Eve in 2020, camera in hand, preparing to deliver a live report on television. A man turned to her and sneered four words that made her freeze.…
Lives Cut Short
Stories from the genocidal campaign against ethnic Hazaras in Afghanistan A poster with photos of 54 people, mostly students and girls from ethnic Hazara community, killed in the September 30, 2022 suicide attack on Kaaj in Kabul. Source: Freshta’s uncle…
Echoes from the Tunnel
by Jada Bullen My family had never shared the full story about the bloody day atop Fort Rupert that forever changed Grenada’s history and their lives. Thirty-eight years later, I finally started asking questions, and the stories they shared changed…
Nazi soldiers found a new home in Argentina. So did their antisemitism.
by Veruska Carballo Fontevecchia After Nazis found refuge in Argentina, a network of German schools helped them spread their dangerous ideology in their new home. Decades later, those schools are still fueling a culture of antisemitism in the country. Mónica…
Reconciliation: Understanding and Forgiving After the Croatian War
by Nick Chun In light of the ethnic tensions that remained after the end of the Croatian War, a social worker worked in reconciliation and community-building to help youth form new ties, all while discovering new lessons for herself. Diana…
Diplomats in exile: how Afghan representatives prepared for the fall of their government.
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…