# data[].attributes.body
What is remarkable about Wadley? What qualities led to her success?

# data[].attributes.body
How important is family in supporting an individual? How did Ruksana's father support her?

# data[].attributes.body
Part One: What do you think are the most important benefits of education for the individual? For society?

# data[].attributes.body
Part Two: What other benefits are there for education? How it is a "multiplier right?"

# data[].attributes.body
Is this infographic surprising? What does this say about the health and well being of individuals around the world?

# data[].attributes.body
What kinds of obstacles did Dr. Ballour face in Syria? Have her circumstances improved since she immigrated to Turkey?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The crack of thunder; a plane streaming overhead; a knock on the door. Amani Ballour is afraid of loud noises. The sounds remind her of the fighter jets and ferocious shelling that forced her to reluctantly flee her native Syria in 2018.

The 32-year-old pediatrician does not find relief in the quiet of her sparsely furnished two-room apartment in Gaziantep, Turkey. In the stillness, she remembers the young patients she calls "my children," those who survived and the many more who didn't.

For two years, from 2016 to 2018, Ballour ran an underground field hospital known as the Cave in her hometown of Eastern Ghouta, near the Syrian capital Damascus. There, she witnessed war crimes including the use of chemical weapons and chlorine bombs, and airstrikes on hospitals, attacks that targeted a place of refuge and those already wounded.

"There was no safe space," Ballour says. "Imagine being the victim of an airstrike, you're treated in hospital, and then bombed there too. The hospital was hit many times. I've been asked to verify how many strikes. Believe me, I couldn't count them all."

As the administrator of the Cave, Ballour was responsible for a staff of some 100 people in a town besieged by troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. For years, essential items such as food and medical supplies were restricted or forbidden from entering the rebel town of Eastern Ghouta, part of Assad's "starve or submit" stranglehold, forcing Ballour and others to smuggle goods in.

Assad's warplanes and, beginning in September 2015, Russia's fighter jets drove the hospital deeper underground into a maze of tunnels and bunkers.

Ballour's journey is featured in National Geographic's documentary, The Cave. Nominated in the 92nd Academy Awards' Documentary Feature category, The Cave was directed by Feras Fayyad and produced by Kirstine Barfod and Sigrid Dyekjær. In 2018, Fayyad was nominated for an academy award for Last Men in Aleppo. The Cave tells the harrowing story of Ballour's struggle to provide healing and comfort in the midst of war in a subterranean hospital. ( Find it in select theaters near you.)

The youngest daughter in a family of three girls and two boys, Ballour says that from childhood she aspired "to do something different" rather than become a homemaker like her older sisters, who married in their teens and early 20s. Her heart set on mechanical engineering, she enrolled in Damascus University. But the pressure of societal gossip, and her father's opposition to her plans, prompted her to switch to medicine, a discipline she says was considered "a more appropriate career for a woman, but as a pediatrician or a gynecologist."

Ballour chose healing children and ignored the many naysayers who mockingly told her that "'once you get married, hang your degree in the kitchen.' I heard this phrase so many times."

In 2011, when the wave of peaceful Arab protests reached Syria, Ballour was a fifth-year medical student, a year away from graduating. The protests quickly engulfed Eastern Ghouta. Ballour marched in a demonstration but didn't tell her family, certain that her parents "would have been a million percent against it [because] they were very afraid something would happen to me." At another protest, she captured brief snippets of video but was too scared to disseminate them. "I was terrified of being detained," she says. Still, the experience was exhilarating. It felt "like I was breathing freedom, it was incredible. It was so empowering simply to say 'no' to what was happening in this country that had been ruled for decades by one regime."

By that time, the Assads-Bashar and, before him, his father Hafez-had ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than four decades. Ballour remembers how as a child she knew that "it was forbidden to speak of certain things, to mention the name of the president, Hafez al-Assad, in any way except to praise him [because] the walls had ears." She'd heard only whispers of the 1982 Hama massacre, when Hafez al-Assad's forces killed thousands of people, insurgents and civilians, in a short-lived Islamist insurrection. "My parents didn't tell us about the Hama massacre, and they should have," she says.

When Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in 2000, Ballour wondered why Syrians couldn't elect a leader with a different surname. "When I asked about it I was told to be quiet, that somebody might hear us," she says. "It was very frightening."

As the Syrian state violently cracked down on the protest movement, beating demonstrators with whip-like rods and firing tear gas and live bullets into crowds, Ballour was drawn into the worsening situation, but not as a protester. In the early years of the Syrian revolution, security forces routinely hunted wounded protesters in hospitals. Those seeking medical treatment risked being detained-disappearing into the regime's network of dungeons-or worse, killed on the spot. Secretive field clinics quietly sprung up in homes and mosques and other places.

Ballour remembers being summoned from home by neighbors to treat her first patient, who was wounded in a protest. It was in late 2012 and she had just graduated. "He was a child who was shot in the head. What could I do for him? He was dead," she says. "He was about eleven years old."

Her first job, as a volunteer without pay, was treating the wounded in a field hospital set up in a partially constructed building that the regime had slated to become a hospital. She was one of two full-time physicians working there. The other was the clinic's founder, Salim Namour. A general surgeon 26 years Ballour's senior, Namour remembers meeting the young woman soon after she graduated. "She introduced herself and offered to help," Namour recalls. "Many experienced doctors were fleeing to safety but here was this young graduate who stayed to help."

At the time, the facility consisted of an operating room and an emergency room in the basement. It would soon expand into a web of underground shelters and become known to locals as the Cave. Wards including pediatrics and internal medicine were added. More doctors, nurses, and volunteers joined the effort. The hospital relied on machinery and equipment taken from damaged hospitals near the frontlines, and smuggled medical supplies paid for by international and Syrian NGOs in the diaspora.

Ballour was not a trauma surgeon, but when the casualties came in, even veterinarians and optometrists treated the wounded. She had to learn quickly, not just emergency medicine, but dealing with the horrors of a savage war. The first mass casualties she saw were charred bodies. Even years later, she can vividly recall "the smell of people burnt beyond recognition and some of them were still alive. It was the most shocking thing I'd seen at the time, I still didn't have experience, I was a new graduate. I was so shocked I couldn't do my job. But then I saw many massacres, so many casualties, and I got to work."

On August 21, 2013, Ballour and her dedicated colleagues faced a new horror: chemical weapons. The Sarin attack on Eastern Ghouta killed hundreds. Ballour recalls rushing to the hospital in the dead of night, picking her way past people, dead and alive, sprawled on the floor to reach the supply room to begin treating patients. "We didn't know exactly what it was, just that people were suffocating. Everybody was an emergency case. A patient who is suffocating cannot wait, and they were all suffocating. We saved who we saved and the ones we didn't get to in time died. We couldn't manage."

The following year, Namour formed a local medical council from the 12 remaining physicians serving a population of some 400,000 people trapped in Eastern Ghouta. The council included two dentists and an optometrist. Not all of those on the council worked in the Cave but together they decided to elect an administrator of the Cave to a six-month term, later expanded to a year. Toward the end of 2015, Ballour decided to stand for the position. "I didn't see why I couldn't be an administrator especially if it was just because of my gender. I am a doctor and they (the two previous male administrators) are doctors. I was in the hospital from the first day, I knew what it needed, I had ideas to expand it, I had a plan."

Her father and brother advised against it, given that Ballour was already spending all of her days and many nights in the Cave. "My father feared for me but I couldn't come home," Ballour says. "There weren't enough doctors. He told me that people wouldn't accept me, that I'd face a lot of problems. The next day I nominated myself and was elected hospital administrator."

Ballour assumed her position in early 2016, a few months after the airstrikes ratcheted up with the arrival of the Russian Air Force in the skies above Eastern Ghouta. The backlash from some patients and their relatives was swift and predictable. "What I heard from a lot of the men was, 'What? Have we run out of men in the country to appoint a woman?' A woman. They wouldn't say a female doctor, but a woman."

A petite, gentle woman with a face reminiscent of a Renaissance portrait, Ballour contended with conservatively patriarchal men-mainly patients and their relatives-who challenged her authority to run a wartime medical facility.

"I used to strongly answer back," she says, referring to the men who would tell her that her place was at home. "I wouldn't stay silent because when you are right, you are right.... Some of the menwould say it's dangerous, the area is besieged, it's a difficult job so a man should do it. Why? A woman can also do it, and I did."

She was fully supported in her efforts by the hospital staff, including Namour. "I couldn't accept this [patriarchal] talk," he says. "I'd tell the men: She's here with us, working day and night whenever we need her while some of the male doctors we all know fled to regime-controlled areas to work in safety. Which do you prefer? It's not about gender, it's about actions and ability, and Dr. Amani made many positive changes to the hospital."

Ballour expanded the Cave, deepening its bunkers and digging tunnels to two small medical clinics in town-and to the cemetery. "We needed to bury the dead but it was too dangerous to be above ground," she says. "We couldn't move above ground."

As the siege tightened and warplanes screamed overhead, there were opportunities to leave through the tunnels, but Ballour didn't take them. "How could I leave?" she says. "Why did I study medicine and focus on children if not to help people? To be there when they needed me, not to leave when I wanted to."

The daily casualty toll climbed into the triple digits. The hospital was repeatedly targeted in air strikes that penetrated deep into the Cave, destroying a ward, killing three personnel and wounding others. On one occasion, Ballour had just stepped out of a ward into the corridor when the rockets crashed behind her. "I couldn't hear anything or see anything. The corridor was full of thick dust that was suspended in the air." When it cleared, she found her dead colleagues: "Their bodies were in pieces."

Ambulances were struck and rescuers killed as they retrieved the wounded. Assad's final push into Eastern Ghouta in February 2018 included a chlorine attack. "The smell of chlorine was overwhelming," Ballour remembers. "I don't have the words to describe what it was like, what we lived, but I want to so that people understand why we left. People were tired and hungry. Many surrendered, including fighters who'd drop their weapons and go toward the regime soldiers. ... The army was closing in on us. They weren't far, we had to flee. We feared they'd kill us if they reached us."

A UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria would later report that Syrian and allied forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the siege and recapture of Eastern Ghouta. Assad's methods of warfare in Ghouta were "barbaric and medieval," the UN report said, including "the longest-running siege in modern history, lasting more than five years."

On March 18, 2018, Amani Ballour and her team evacuated the wounded and abandoned the Cave, but not before the doctor walked through every room and bade it farewell. "I thought about all the people who had passed through this hospital. I was a child when the building that would become the hospital was built, and I later worked in it for six years. We were besieged there, attacked there, we saved and lost lives there. I had so many memories in that place, most of them painful but we had good times too. It was very, very painful for me to leave the hospital."

She walked away with nothing but the clothes on her back, leaving behind the cherished white coat that she'd worn since she was a medical student. "It was so bloody that I couldn't take it with me," she says. "It was very special to me."

Ballour and several of her family members and colleagues including Namour initially fled to nearby Zamalka, a suburb of Damascus, but there was shelling there too. Ten days later, Ballour was again on the move, this time to Idlib province in northwestern Syria bordering Turkey, the last rebel stronghold in the country. She'd never been to Idlib before. She moved from town to town in the province, but there was no escaping the warplanes.

She volunteered to help a pediatrician in a village field hospital but couldn't stay more than a few hours in the facility. "When I looked at the children in Idlib I remembered my children and what happened to them. I couldn't see that again. I was very psychologically drained and tired."

She was also tired of hearing some in Idlib, mainly Islamist fighters, blame her and others in Eastern Ghouta for what they termed "surrendering" to the regime. After three months in Idlib she fled to Gaziantep, Turkey in June 2018. She married an activist from Daraa whom she'd communicated with while she was in Ghouta but never previously met.

Now, she is safe, but she is not happy. The winter sun streams through her apartment windows. She is no longer underground, but she lives with the bitterness of being a refugee in a foreign land, struggling with the burden of what she survived, and the memories of those who didn't, especially the children.

"They are in front of my eyes," she says. "There are children I cannot forget, it's impossible to forget them. There were children I'd treat in the pediatric ward (for asthma and other ailments) and then I'd see them when they'd been wounded. It was like working on family. I couldn't look into their eyes when I worked on them. Sometimes I'd crash, I'd break down."

She still has nightmares and every loud sound reminds her of a warplane. During thunderstorms, she says, if her husband isn't home he calls her to reassure her that the noise isn't an airstrike. She replays conversations with some of her young patients, like five-year-old Mahmoud who lost a hand to shrapnel, and through tears asked Ballour why she'd cut it off. "What could I tell him when he asked me that? I cried a lot that day." And then there was the young boy who lost his arm at the shoulder. "I can still hear him crying out to me, asking me to help him."

In Syria, Ballour says, she felt useful, like she was making a difference. "Here, I sometimes I feel like I am nothing." She spends her days volunteering with a Syrian women's group and studying English in the hopes of immigrating to Canada, but several applications have been rejected.

"Honestly, the word refugee is a difficult label to wear. I love my country, my home, my life in Syria, my memories of it, but why did we become refugees? People should ask what is behind that word 'refugee' and why we escaped. I'm a refugee because I fled oppression and danger. I didn't want to leave. I would have preferred to stay in Ghouta, despite everything. We were besieged and bombarded and we persisted for six years, we didn't want to leave. It was a very, very difficult moment. ... I wish that people who just look at us as refugees ask what we escaped from and why we left. It's a painful word but I didn't have a choice. I don't believe I had a choice."

Ballour intends to continue practicing medicine, but not as a pediatrician. Instead, she plans to shift to radiology, because she says, "I can't psychologically see patients any more, especially children." It's a sentiment that Namour understands. "I'm a surgeon who has spent his life in operating theaters, but after the bitter experience that we survived, after the inhumanity and suffering that we saw in Ghouta, I can't stand the sight of blood or being in an operating theater," he says, "Even though to me surgery is a technique, like a painter working on a portrait. We survived very difficult days."

Ballour is finding other ways to help her people. She is involved in a fund, named Al Amal (Hope), to support female leaders and medical workers in conflict zones. She is a strong advocate for helping the millions of displaced Syrians living in tent cities within Syria and the millions more who have become refugees beyond its borders.

The Syrian war has slipped from the news pages but Ballour is determined to inform people about the atrocities she witnessed in a nearly nine-year-long war that is nowhere near over. "I don't want to tell stories to make people cry and get upset, I want them to help," she says. "There are still so many people who need help."

And then, there is the issue of justice. The child whose parents were too afraid to tell her about the Hama massacre is now a female doctor determined to widely disseminate her testimony of the chemical attacks on Eastern Ghouta. "I must get this testimony to organizations that can one day hopefully hold the regime to account for this crime," she says. "I saw it. It happened."

"The one thing that helps me is knowing that we were in the right, on the right side of history because we opposed injustice," she says. "My conscience is clear. I had a duty toward people and I fulfilled it as best I could with the means at my disposal. But sometimes I regret leaving and blame myself, but then I say I had no choice. This is the truth of the conflicting feelings inside me. I tried to help, and that helps me, that I was a humanitarian."

The Academy Award nominated documentary, The Cave, is available on demand and on the Nat Geo TV App. Watch Now.

This story was updated on January 13, 2020.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
This Syrian doctor saved thousands in an underground hospital

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The crack of thunder; a plane streaming overhead; a knock on the door. Amani Ballour is afraid of loud noises. The sounds remind her of the fighter jets and ferocious shelling that forced her to reluctantly flee her native Syria in 2018.

# data[].attributes.body
Part One: How does climate change affect the Coral Triangle? Why is this little section of the world important?

# data[].attributes.body
Part Two: How did the fishermen combat food insecurity during COVID?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Malaysia: New “from fisher to consumer” delivery system tackles food shortages during COVID-19

# data[].attributes.headline
What if a single human right could change the world?

# data[].attributes.subject
What if a single human right could change the world?

# data[].attributes.body
Why is having a legal identity so important?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kristen Wenz: What if a single human right could change the world?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
More than a billion people worldwide, mostly children, do not have a legal identity. In many countries, this means they can't get access to vital services like health care and education, says legal identity expert Kristen Wenz.

# data[].attributes.body
What do you learn about Trevor's story? What is the purpose of the Trevor Project? *Please note, this film deals with themes of gender and sexuality.

# data[].attributes.body
What is most remarkable about William?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Moving Windmills: The William Kamkwamba story

# data[].attributes.body
What does it mean when mental health advocates fight against the "stigma" of mental health?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The praise heaped on Japanese tennis champion Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles - considered the greatest gymnast ever - for stepping away from competition to deal with mental health issues should give us hope.

Maybe, just maybe, we're finally beginning to crack the stigma attached to mental illness.

It's been a long time coming.

In 2008, Congress honored author Bebe Moore Campbell by designating July as National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.

Campbell, an author, journalist and mental health advocate, struggled to support her daughter, who battled mental illness. Campbell died of brain cancer in 2006.
"While everyone - all colors - everyone is affected by stigma - no one wants to say 'I'm not in control of my mind.' No one wants to say, 'The person I love is not in control of [their] mind. But people of color really don't want to say it because we already feel stigmatized by virtue of skin color or eye shape or accent, and we don't want any more reasons for anyone to say, 'You're not good enough.'"
Osaka and Biles do not have that worry.

Osaka, 23, the highest-paid female athlete, was already a four-time Grand Slam champion when she bowed out of the French Open in June, citing mental health issues.

And Biles, 24, the country's most decorated gymnast, won four gold medals and a bronze at the 2016 Olympics, earning millions in endorsements.

Her decision to drop out of the team all-around at the Tokyo games after a flawed vault and later to back out of the individual all-around competition shocked the world.

Both women pointed to mental health concerns as the culprit.

For Biles, it was the "twisties" - a phenomenon that can cause gymnasts to lose their sense of space, leaving them unable to spin in mid-air - that put her on the sidelines.

And for Osaka, it was anxiety and depression that she said began at the 2018 U.S. Open after she beat tennis legend Serena Williams in a controversial match. Last month, after officials threatened to expel Osaka for declining to participate in news conferences, she decided to withdraw.

These are watershed moments.

Athletes are admired for their seemingly superhuman strengths. The truth is, mental illness can bring even a superhero to their knees.

But while I applaud Biles and Osaka for their bravery, there is still a great deal of stigma attached to mental illness in the African American community.

Mental health issues are often viewed as a "weakness," and only one in three African Americans who struggle with mental health issues receive appropriate treatment, Ruth White, a professor in the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, said in an article posted on the school's website.

"As a country, we need to make meaningful policy changes that will increase mental health care for people of color so fewer African Americans will go without the treatment they need," White said.

According to the Office of Minority Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "Black adults in the U.S. are more likely than white adults to report persistent symptoms of emotional distress, such as sadness, hopelessness, and feeling like everything is an effort. Black adults living below the poverty line are more than twice as likely to report serious psychological distress than those with more financial security."

Unfortunately, in many families, the recurring bouts of anxiety and depression some family members suffer are treated as a normal part of life. We were expected to get over it.

I hope Biles and Osaka continue the conversation.

But we also need policy changes that ensure people won't be penalized for getting treatment.

For instance, people suffering from depression or anxiety shouldn't have to worry that a decision to seek treatment will come back to haunt them in the form of lost job opportunities and higher insurance premiums.

These young women have shown the world that it is cool to protect our minds just like we protect our bodies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles bring fresh voices to the fight against stigma of mental illness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The praise heaped on Japanese tennis champion Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles - considered the greatest gymnast ever - for stepping away from competition to deal with mental health issues should give us hope. Maybe, just maybe, we're finally beginning to crack the stigma attached to mental illness.

# data[].attributes.body
Write a review (if you’ve read it), write how the title might connect to one or more of the stories from the choice board, or write why you might select this title for a literature circle.

# data[].attributes.body
Write a review (if you’ve read it), write how the title might connect to one or more of the stories from the choice board, or write why you might select this title for a literature circle.

# data[].attributes.body
We're reading this in class this year!

# data[].attributes.body
Write a review (if you’ve read it), write how the title might connect to one or more of the stories from the choice board, or write why you might select this title for a literature circle.

# data[].attributes.body
Write a review (if you’ve read it), write how the title might connect to one or more of the stories from the choice board, or write why you might select this title for a literature circle.

# data[].attributes.body
Write a review (if you’ve read it), write how the title might connect to one or more of the stories from the choice board, or write why you might select this title for a literature circle.

# data[].attributes.body
Write a review (if you’ve read it), write how the title might connect to one or more of the stories from the choice board, or write why you might select this title for a literature circle.

# data[].attributes.body
We're reading this in class this year!

# data[].attributes.body
What does Mariama teach us about advocacy in Sierra Leone?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Where Are They Now | Mariama from Sierra Leone

# data[].attributes.body
Part One: What did you learn from Senna's Story?

# data[].attributes.body
Part Two: What is your reaction about the update about Senna?

# data[].attributes.body
What does Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie mean when she talks about "a single story?" What example jumps out at you?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

# data[].attributes.body
What did you learn about Feras's sharing of stories? What do you want to learn?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The real-life superheroes helping Syrian refugees | Feras Fayyad

# data[].attributes.body
What does Jamila mean that she's a "tri-tongued orator?" How is it part of her identity?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jamila Lyiscott is a “tri-tongued orator;” in her powerful spoken-word essay “Broken English,” she celebrates — and challenges — the three distinct flavors of English she speaks with her friends, in the classroom and with her parents. As she explores the complicated history and present-day identity that each language represents, she unpacks what it means to be “articulate.”

# data[].attributes.body
Review the goals set by the United Nations. Which one or two goals do you think are most important and why?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

The 17 SDGs are integrated-they recognize that action in one area will affect outcomes in others, and that development must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability.

Countries have committed to prioritize progress for those who're furthest behind. The SDGs are designed to end poverty, hunger, AIDS, and discrimination against women and girls.

The creativity, knowhow, technology and financial resources from all of society is necessary to achieve the SDGs in every context.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

# data[].attributes.headline
Syrian Graffiti Artist | BLM and George Floyd

# data[].attributes.subject
Syrian Graffiti Artist | BLM and George Floyd

# data[].attributes.body
Why does this artist paint a mural memorializing George Floyd in Syria?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In Solidarity and as a Symbol of Global Injustices, a Syrian Artist Painted a Mural to George Floyd on a Bombed Idlib Building

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Syrian artist Aziz Asmar painted a mural showing George Floyd's face next to the words "I can't breathe" on a bombed-out building in Idlib.

# data[].attributes.body
How does the song fit with the biography of Berta Caceres?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Song for Berta - Damien Rice, Sandrayati Fay & JFDR

# data[].attributes.headline
A young Scientist's Quest for Clean Water

# data[].attributes.subject
A young Scientist's Quest for Clean Water

# data[].attributes.body
Why does Deepika Kurup say that "water is a human right?" What does she do to help?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Deepika Kurup: A young scientist’s quest for clean water | TED Talk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Deepika Kurup has been determined to solve the global water crisis since she was 14 years old, after she saw kids outside her grandparents’ house in India drinking water that looked too dirty even to touch. Her research began in her family kitchen -- and eventually led to a major science prize. Hear how this teenage scientist developed a cost-effective, eco-friendly way to purify water.

# data[].attributes.body
What do you learn about gender equality from this trailer?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Based on the bestselling middle-grade novel by Deborah Ellis, The Breadwinner is an animated feature film set in 2001 in Kabul. It follows the empowering story of a young girl named Parvana who must cut off her hair and disguise herself as a boy to become the breadwinner for her family when her father is imprisoned.

# data[].attributes.body
Who is Tara Houska? What rights does she speak about in her TEDTalk?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Standing Rock resistance and our fight for Indigenous rights

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Still invisible and often an afterthought, Indigenous peoples are uniting to protect the world’s water, lands and history -- while trying to heal from genocide and ongoing inequality. Tribal attorney and Couchiching First Nation citizen Tara Houska chronicles the history of attempts by government and industry to eradicate the legitimacy of Indigenous peoples’ land and culture, including the months-long standoff at Standing Rock which rallied thousands around the world. “It’s incredible what you can do when you stand together,” Houska says. “Stand with us -- empathize, learn, grow, change the conversation.”

# data[].attributes.headline
Erika and Ursula | When a former Nazi meets a Holocaust Survivor

# data[].attributes.subject
Erika and Ursula | When a former Nazi meets a Holocaust Survivor

# data[].attributes.body
What did the two women learn from this meeting? What does the viewer learn?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
When a former Nazi meets a Holocaust survivor

# data[].attributes.body
Why do you think Margana had such a challenging time sharing part of her identity?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Morgana Bailey: The danger of hiding who you are

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Morgana Bailey has been hiding her true self for 16 years. In a brave talk, she utters four words that might not seem like a big deal to some, but to her have been paralyzing. Why speak up? Because she's realized that her silence has personal, professional and societal consequences.

# data[].attributes.body
What is the message of this animated poem? How do the artists show this visually?

# data[].attributes.body
What does Waab al-Kateab offer in her story?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 2011, as protests against the Assad regime broke out across Syria, economics student Waad al-Kateab grabbed her phone and started filming. For the next five years, al-Kateab would document her surroundings almost constantly - including as destruction took hold in rebel-held Aleppo, her home.

In the FRONTLINE feature film For Sama, al-Kateab provides an unflinching view of motherhood and war. Through hundreds of hours of footage, al-Kateab captured her twenty-something life - falling in love; marrying one of the last doctors in Aleppo; and giving birth to her daughter Sama - as her city crumbles around her. By zeroing in on a hospital's efforts to cope with the sheer number of casualties, al-Kateab sharpens our understanding of the toll the five-year siege took on civilians.

The film is a letter to Sama, who was born and raised among conflict. But it is also a way for al-Kateab to highlight what happened to her home. "This film is the only weapon I have to fight against the regime," she said.

For Sama won the SXSW 2019 Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature in March and has been selected to screen at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Following a theatrical release this summer, a broadcast version of For Sama will premiere on FRONTLINE in the U.S. and internationally on the U.K.'s Channel 4. We spoke to Emmy award-winning directors al-Kateab and Edward Watts ahead of For Sama's appearance at the Hot Docs film festival.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. How did you become a journalist?
Waad al-Kateab: I always dreamed of becoming a journalist. My parents supported me in whatever decision I would make, but with this one, they would say, 'Don't do this. You can't do this.' My parents - my father especially - would tell me that it is impossible to be a journalist in Syria, and that I would get sent to prison.

Suddenly, in 2011, the revolution started. I wanted to be a part of this change. So, I started filming the protests at Aleppo University with my phone.

From the early days of the revolution, all of the official news channels were saying that nothing was happening, that Syria was a very good country with democracy and freedom. The regime was not allowing any foreign journalists inside the country in the first year to cover the protests. We hadn't seen anything like this before, so I felt like it was our role to show the world what was happening. I wanted evidence, and I felt that film is a way to really transfer the reality of what was happening to others.
Were there any times when you had to turn the camera off or look away?
Al-Kateab: I was always at the hospital with my camera turned on, filming my friends fighting or laughing or just whatever was happening. Suddenly, we lost one of our friends from this group. I felt that the fact I recorded all of these moments with people I could lose at any time was one of the most amazing things I could do in my life. Since then, I decided to record everything, because one day I may be the one who is killed.

It was also really important to me to record the reality of life under the regime - what our dreams were and how we ended up in all this violence. It is a record for the future that is outside the regime propaganda and misinformation.

The camera became a part of me. It was something that supported me and helped me feel strong even when I felt scared.

Edward Watts: She was unflinching in what she filmed. There is one shot that I could never get out of my head: the pile of dead children just stacked outside a door, literally piled on top of each other. She filmed that, and it was this raw truth.
There are scenes in the film that are quite graphic. What were some of the discussions around what you decided to show?
Al-Kateab: People in Syria had to deal with these things whether we had the strength or not. There was no choice. I wanted the film to be delivered to people just like the war came to us, while being respectful of the dead and their families.

People around the world - even us sometimes - start to see the dead as just numbers. It is different when you see death up close. The solution isn't to not watch, but in how we react to it.

Watts: It was such a difficult balance to strike. You have a responsibility to show the reality in whatever way you can, because that is how we as a civilization advance and learn from our mistakes. But finding the right balance wasn't just down to us: it was down to our executives, as well as our friends, family and other people contributing, because we wanted to show the reality and respect the people who were suffering and continue our duty to the truth.
There is a line in the film about how living a normal life in Aleppo is a form of rebellion. Can you talk about what it means to maintain normalcy in the most abnormal of situations?
Al-Kateab: The regime is trying to kill our hope. I really believe that we would not be able to survive without hope.

There was one guy who would deliver flowers - he helped set up the garden on our porch in Aleppo. I filmed him because I wanted to record the hope and beauty of how he continued to do his job despite the siege. He ended up getting killed. When you are really desperate and can't see anything good, something beautiful comes your way, and that gives you hope.

Watts: That is the mighty humanity on display in the film. It is such an incredible testament to the human spirit and what people can survive.
Why did the chronology of the film jump around instead of staying linear?
Watts: It was so important to be able to move between the light and the dark. We had a previous version that was chronological, and what that meant was you started in all of this joy and hope and light of the revolution. And then you entered this dark pit of the siege and it just felt very unbalanced as a narrative. The movement between the two time periods allows you to move through the humanity and get into the heart and soul of the experience.

Al-Kateab: It shows how any human being can live his life after having these experiences. In each moment - no matter how dark - I always remember the good things. And from the good things, I always come back to some really difficult moments. So, it is exactly how my mind would work.
As a woman and resident of Aleppo, what sort of obstacles and opportunities did you have when filming?
Al-Kateab: Some journalists come for one or two months or one year and then leave. I grew up with these people, and we lived together through the siege for five years. My neighbors were used to seeing me with my camera, and I was also living in the hospital. We faced the same threats together and shared all the good and bad things as a family. This made people feel comfortable around me with a camera.
Has your daughter Sama seen the film?
Al-Kateab: Of course. It has been two years of me working on the film on my laptop. She gets very excited when she sees herself on the screen and shouts her name. We are trying to make sure she remembers where she comes from. When we ask her where she is from, she will say, 'Syria, Aleppo.'
Has the concept of home changed for you now that you are residing in the U.K.?
Al-Kateab: Home will always be Aleppo and Syria. We are trying to lead a normal life in London, but at any moment we could return to Syria. People always ask me why I stayed in Syria even though there was so much suffering and war. Even though we could have been killed, we were happy to stay because we were fighting for our land, our freedom. When we lost Aleppo, we thought we lost everything. But we do find new hope.

This morning my father called me early because he wasn't aware of the time difference. When I told him the time, he asked me why I was checking my phone so early. I laughed and said I am always checking the news to see if the regime has fallen. Then my mom shouted from the other side of the room, 'don't worry, if the regime falls, we will call you.'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"For Sama" Director Waad al-Kateab: 'This film is the only weapon I have against the regime'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2011, as protests against the Assad regime broke out across Syria, economics student Waad al-Kateab grabbed her phone and started filming. For the next five years, al-Kateab would document her surroundings almost constantly - including as destruction took hold in rebel-held Aleppo, her home.

# data[].attributes.body
What does this news report share about oil pipelines and land rights? Is there an environmental concern?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Pipeline battle brews in Minnesota between Indigenous tribes and a major oil company

# data[].attributes.body
Why are some seniors reluctant to share part of their identity? How does it affect their health care?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Brief But Spectacular take on breaking the script in healthcare