ELA 1: Choice Book Research-Based Speech Project

The websites below are grouped by choice book and are from trusted sources. 

Escape from Camp 14

• 'Escape From Camp 14': Inside North Korea's Gulag: An interview with the author of the novel from NPR.
• ‘Escape from Camp 14’ a true North Korea survival story: Journalist Blaine Harden chronicles the life of the only camp-born man known to escape a North Korean camp.
• Life under Kim Jong Un in North Korea: WSJ article about the experiences of North Korean refugees who escaped from Kim Jong Un's regime and how life in North Korea has changed since his succession.
• What Happens to Your Family When You Escape North Korea, and Other Harrowing Tales from Beyond Utopia: PBS Independent Lens blog post highlights the perilous journeys of North Korean defectors featured in the documentary, Beyond Utopia.
• North Korea: Laws used to crack down on access to foreign media and mobile phones with harsh punishments: An article from CIVICUS, an international alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world.
• North Korea: Residents tell BBC of neighbours starving to death: Exclusive interviews gathered inside the world's most isolated state suggest the situation is the worst it has been since the 1990s. 

A Long Way Gone

• Child Soldiers, Adult Lives: Families and communities are central to recovery for Sierra Leone's former child soldiers, Boston College researchers find in 15-year study of war-affected youth, the first to follow child soldiers into adulthood.
• Yemen: Houthis Recruit More Child Soldiers Since October 7: An article from Human Rights Watch on Houthis recruiting thousands of people to their armed forces since October 7, 2023, including children as young as 13.
• The Struggle of Former Child Soldiers: Explores the complex challenges faced by children who have been forcibly recruited into armed conflicts.
• Child Soldiers in Armed Conflict: From the Armed Conflict Survey 2018, this article examines the recruitment, indoctrination, and use of children in armed conflicts.
• This is our opportunity to end the Taliban's use of child soldiers: Highlights the Taliban's ongoing recruitment of children into their ranks, a practice that violates international law and persists despite previous commitments to end such actions. 

Born a Crime

• A Brief History of Educational Inequality from Apartheid to the Present: The article explains how South Africa’s apartheid government deliberately funneled far more resources, better teachers, and longer schooling to white students while leaving Black students in overcrowded, underfunded schools.
• Thirty years after the end of apartheid, equality eludes South Africa: 30 years after the end of apartheid, South Africa remains one of the world’s most unequal countries.
• The historical reality of land ownership in South Africa amid Trump’s criticisms: This PBS NewsHour segment explains that President Trump has condemned South Africa’s new law allowing government land seizure without compensation—portraying it as unfair to white farmers, while experts underscore that the policy seeks to address centuries of apartheid-era land dispossession. 
• Gender-Based Violence Against Women in South Africa: South Africa has among the highest rates of violence against women—rooted in its apartheid history, persistent poverty, and patriarchal cultural attitudes.
• Gender-based violence – An increasing epidemic in South Africa: Gender-based violence in South Africa is extremely common and serious, driven by social, economic, and cultural problems.

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