by Helen Womack | 29 Dec 2020 | Health and Wellness, Personal Reflections
For some, COVID-19 has meant grief, for others inconvenience. But the year has made us ask: Should we go back to “normal” when the future arrives? Protesters demanding more resources for public health and against social inequality, Madrid, Spain, 27 Septmber 2020 (AP...
by Tendayi Chirawu | 18 Dec 2020 | Friends Seminary, News Decoder Updates, Youth Voices
A former Student Ambassador, Malik Figaro was News Decoder’s first intern from a partner school. Here are lessons he has drawn in his gap year. Malik Figaro, News Decoder’s most recent intern, was nervous before he decided to take a year off between high...
by Stella Mapenzauswa | 7 Dec 2020 | Africa, Religion
Many Africans see religion as a path to prosperity. Self-professed prophets are soliciting church donations that bankroll their own lavish lifestyles. Anointing water from T.B. Joshua’s Synagogue, Church of All Nations in Johannesburg, South Africa, 14 February...
by Jasmine Li | 1 Dec 2020 | China, Culture, Educators' Catalog, Health and Wellness, Student Posts, Westover School, Youth Voices
COVID-19 left me in limbo in the United States, full of fear and anger. Then I returned home to China to face criticism before reuniting with my family. An empty John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (All photos by Jasmine Li) So this is where I am going...
The coronavirus pandemic has put strains on students, their families, schools, entire communities. But Jasmine Li, a Chinese student at Westover School in the United States, provides a first-person account of the special difficulties facing foreign nationals caught in limbo as COVID-19 triggered global travel restrictions. Li cannot return to her temporary home at school, and when she finally makes it home to China, she discovers some compatriots consider her a traitor and urge her to leave. Adolescence can be a difficult period of self-discovery, but Li’s painful experiences are the product of a globalized world that, in normal circumstances, offers extraordinary opportunities but which, during a pandemic, sees forgotten borders re-emerge. Ask each student to describe their most difficult moment during the pandemic. How do their experiences compare?
by Charlotte Parker and Gabriella Rivas | 23 Nov 2020 | Americas, Personal Reflections, Politics, United States, Youth Voices
In 2016, students from a U.S. school near Mexico worried about Donald Trump. Today, one of the youths and their ex-teacher find hope in Joe Biden. Gabriella Rivas and Charlotte Parker in 2016 Gabriella Rivas in 2020 In 2016, after Donald Trump was elected U.S....