大象传媒

Personal stories behind the news from all over the world. With Matthew Bannister.

From Kabul to Cambridge; Russians in Algeria; saving Haiti's art

From Kabul to Cambridge
Mohammad Razai's father was executed by the Marxist government during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. And his family - members of the Hazara ethnic group - faced persecution for years. Ten years ago Mohammad fled his homeland for the UK. He was fifteen years old, spoke no English, had a fake passport and just a bag of clothes. Today he's a British citizen and is studying medicine at the prestigious Cambridge University - he tells Matthew Bannister how he got there.

Russians in Algeria
From the 1960s to the 1980s, the Soviet Union paid for thousands of students from so called "non aligned" countries to travel to the USSR to be trained as doctors, pilots and engineers. When the students returned home, many had Russian wives. One of them, Natalia Skorenko El-Berkinou, tells reporter Chloe Arnold her memories of that time.

Saving Haiti's art
It's nearly six months since the island of Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake in which over 230,000 people died. As well as the enormous loss of life and livelihoods, many of Haiti's museums, galleries and art collections were destroyed or badly damaged in the earthquake. Cori Wegener is a museum curator from Minneapolis in the US - she tells Matthew about the project she is leading to help restore the country's cultural heritage.