The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

Begins	16 Apr 2008 - 6:30pm
Ends	16 Apr 2008 - 8:00pm
Location	66 West 12th Street. Room 404

50-minute film followed by Q&A with filmmaker

Free and open to the public; Refreshments served
RSVP at www.imaginingglobalasia.org

In the past five years more than four million Iraqis – 20 per cent of the entire population – have been driven from their homes as a result of the war and sectarian bloodshed. Two million have become exiles, living desperate lives across the border in Syria and Jordan. The Lost Generation investigated the biggest and most catastrophic refugee crisis in the Middle East since the Palestinian diasapora of 1948.

Award-winning journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy travels to Syria and Jordan to investigate the plight of Iraqi refugees. These are the very people on whom the new, democratic Iraq was to be built – the professional middle classes – nearly half of whom now live as desperate refugees, driven out by the violence and civil breakdown.

We are told that Iraq is getting safer, but no-one Sharmeen meets on her journey wants to go back. And they face a bleak future with less than a one per cent chance of being resettled in a Western country. Last year, just four refugees from Syria were granted asylum in Britain.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Born in Karachi, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was the first woman in her Pakistani family to receive a Western education.  Obaid-Chinoy is an award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker.  Her documentary films explore the impact of politics on ordinary people – refugees from Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Pakistani citizens affected by the rise of fundamentalism, Indian and Pakistani families separated by history.
www.sharmeenobaidfilms.com