Dreams and Displacement in Afghanistan
Join investigative reporter and Pulitzer Center grantee May Jeong for a discussion of her experiences reporting from Afghanistan.
In preparation for this talk, attendees are encouraged to watch Afghan Dreamers, a documentary about an all-girls robotics team from Afghanistan and their fate as the Taliban came to power. The film is teen friendly and can be used in the classroom. You can view the trailer here. The film is currently streaming on Paramount+.
About the Film
When the five members of the Afghan Girls’ Robotics Team were born, education was still forbidden for women under then-Taliban rule. Fast forward to 2017 when the unlikely all-girls robotics team from Afghanistan was formed and quickly gained fame at international competitions. Their success began shifting perceptions back home, where long-held views disapproved of females pursuing STEAM programs. Instead, now they were embraced by hundreds of young girls inspired to emulate their pioneering role models. AFGHAN DREAMERS follows the team around the globe as they proudly represent the version of their nation they want the world to know. But Taliban forces and ongoing violence pose threats to their promising futures. Determined to build a better tomorrow for their country, the women must find a way to pursue their dreams in the face of tumultuous civil unrest.
About May Jeong
May Jeong is a reporter at Vanity Fair. Her reporting from Afghanistan has been awarded the South Asian Journalist Association’s Daniel Pearl Award and the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for war correspondents. Her work has also been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Livingston Awards. She lives on land ceded by the Lenape people in the Treaty of Shackamaxon in 1682, in an area currently called Brooklyn, New York.
This event is co-sponsored with the Middle East Studies Program, the Center for South Asia, and the 4W Initiative at UW-Madison.
