They’ve gone dark: Afghans who helped the U.S. military, trained as American-style journalists and rode the wave of women heading to higher education are destroying the diplomas, transcripts and résumés that prove how they built civil society in the country that the U.S. has left behind.
Student journalists reporting on refugees in Paris: ‘Here Today’
By Nathan Tirman
GSS correspondent, American School of Paris
PARIS — It’s finally here: 10th grade students at the American School of Paris have launched a multimedia website Friday called “Here Today,” a deep exploration of global migration issues centered in Paris.
The project is a collaboration between ASP, the Association Pierre Claver, a school for asylum seekers in Paris, and Global Student Square, an international student journalism network.
GSS executive director Beatrice Motamedi came to ASP in September and taught beginning journalism and global citizenship as part of GAPS advisory program (GAPS stands for global citizenship, academic and personal excellence, and service learning).
Each sophomore student designed a specific project to provide information and context about the refugee crisis, including reporting in Paris and working with students at Claver. Student teams produced pictures, videos, editing, and even a comedy news show with factchecking. Students were assigned to teams based on their “superpowers,” or special interests, skills, and hobbies.
“This project is really amazing because we are not only covering a global issue, but we are also able to take the individual superpowers and perspectives of every 10th grader and create something great from it,” said Christina Nessim, 15, who made a Slidely photo gallery of the transportation methods that refugees have used to flee their home countries.
Teams worked on specific projects. For example, the social media team created an Instagram account, @aspheretoday, the reporting team worked with the video team to make a film on a soccer game that took place on Oct. 17 between ASP’s varsity boys team and the Claver soccer team, and the visuals team did everything from a logo and cartoons to a small digital book about the outlook for refugees under a Donald J. Trump presidency in the U.S.
A StoryMap by student Nina Tapie (left) captured the journey of a Rahman Amiri, an Afghan refugee and Claver student whose six-month journey included traveling by car, boat, truck, train and walking.
Students Max de Nervo, Caroline Maschka and Megumi Gupta took another approach, running one Saturday morning with Claver students and coach Alban Dupla one morning to produce a video about Claver students who have suffered physically after imprisonment and flight, yet are rebuilding themselves through the sport of running:
The staff of ASPire, ASP’s student-produced news website, joined the effort, reporting on a refugee camp in central Paris that has been the target of repeated evacuations by police, and covering an Oct. 17 soccer game between the ASP varsity boys soccer team and the Claver soccer team. Both stories were honored with “best of” mentions by School Newspapers Online.
Students said they enjoyed the freedom to be creative and to collaborate, sharing their skills to complete specific tasks that were sometimes very arduous.
“I think the GAPS project has inspired the students to be more curious about the world around them,” said Kim Graves, a GAPS 10 advisory teacher who assisted with the project. “It has humanized a global crisis and motivated ASP students to develop critical problem solving skills.”
GAPS students also were assisted by one to two peer mentors in each class, seniors who helped coach and even produced work of their own, such as a Spotify playlist by peer mentor Alexia Parent. For the Claver soccer game, peer mentor Sleiman Chiarara cooked dozens of “crêpes for social justice.”
“The GAPS class this year helped students learn and develop skills that helps them succeed later in life as well as making them become more mature,” said Sacha Worms, a peer mentor. “The rigorous project made the GAPS kids open their eyes and pay more attention to the details of the world around them.”
“I’m proud of the effort that the GAPS students made and the risks they took not only creatively but in moving out of their comfort zones to produce this body of work,” Motamedi said.
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