From cotton farms in Burkina Faso to sweatshops in Bangladesh and Romania, a story of the real costs...
Jošt Franko and Meta Krese
From plantations in Burkina Faso to sweatshops in Bangladesh and Romania, grantees Jošt Franko and Meta Krese track the story of the cotton that goes into the clothes we wear. Jošt's powerful photographs were featured last week in The New York Times Lens Blog. "Cotton has a really dark history, which seems like it never stopped," Jošt told the Times. "It was really important to show the whole supply chain from scratch. Everyone kind of knows what's happening in Bangladesh and where clothes come from, but nobody really understands the first part of the supply chain. So we kind of wanted to connect the dots."
Krithika Varagur
Saudi Arabia's number one export is, of course, oil. Number two is Islam—its own brand of strict Salafist Islam. Grantee Krithika Varagur reports for The Atlantic on the deepening network of Saudi influence in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation.
Vince Beiser
Rapid urbanization has turned sand—the key ingredient in concrete and glass—into a precious commodity. In two stories for The Guardian, grantee Vince Beiser explores the illegal and increasingly violent pursuit of sand.
