This Week: Afghanistan: To Stay or Leave?

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The Hardest Choice
Alexandria Bombach

Nobody wants to be a refugee. It is a choice forced by circumstance. War, famine, persecution based on religion, ethnicity or gender orientation—these are the reasons people find themselves pushed from their homeland. In this New York Times "Op-Doc," Pulitzer Center grantee Alexandria Bombach profiles five Afghans as they struggle to decide whether they should stay in their shattered country or depart for an uncertain future. "It is difficult to leave behind a familiar place that is so much a part of your identity to start over in a foreign place that offers little to no opportunity," says Alexandria. "Watching the migration crisis unfold, I so often see refugees portrayed as 'the other' trying to get in. The news media often relies on statistics to depict the crisis, dehumanizing the people behind the numbers…This film is an attempt to bring empathy and nuance to the complexities of this innately human choice."

If you are a teacher, connect your students to Alexandria's work using this lesson plan built on the Lesson Builder.

A Way to Fight Child Labor
Fred de Sam Lazaro, Michael Holtz, Ann Hermes
Last year's Nepal earthquake shattered countless lives, but as grantees Michael Holtz, Ann Hermes and Fred de Sam Lazaro discover, it has given reformers a rare chance to crack down on child labor abuses.

Preparing to Fail
Seema Yasmin
Doctors on the frontlines learned a lot fighting the Ebola epidemic, but as grantee Seema Yasmin reports, the latest effort to prepare for the next epidemic is already underfunded and understaffed.