Reporting about the Iraqi refugee crisis

The story about the Iraqi refugee crisis is a breaking story that is greatly under-reported in the commercial media. It is a major story you can do and bring attention to a major issue.

Background:

• Refugees International published a report, Uprooted and Unstable: Meeting Urgent Humanitarian Needs in Iraq. Contact: Vanessa Parra, Press & Information Officer, ri@refintl.org .
• The American Friends Service Committee has good background on the crisis. 

Sources:

Ways to localize:

• Are there Iraqi refugees on your campus? 
• Is your school aware of the Iraqi Student Project, which is working to bring Iraqi refugee students to American campuses on scholarships? Twenty colleges have signed up to give scholarships to students.

What other college newspapers have done:

• In her shoes: from Iraq to America — Living as a college student in Baghdad during the war by Christine Graf, Cabrini College Loquitur. This story is not strictly about a refugee but is an in-depth interview with a college student who had to flee Iraq because of the war. Although she had completed her first year as a pre-med student in Iraq, she had to flee so quickly that she didn’t have time to get her transcript and so had to do freshman year over in the United States. The photo that accompanied the story, taken by Kerry English, had to be obscured so that her relatives still in Iraq would not be harmed.