Abbey Webb

by Abbey Webb Introduction She is told she is safe now. The door closes behind her, and the voices outside fade. Someone hands her a blanket and a bottle of water. They ask her name, her age, and where she is from. They tell her she has been rescued and everything will be okay. For the first time in months or even years she is no longer being sold. The people around her call this moment freedom. But she does not know where she will sleep tomorrow. She does not know if she will ever go home,...

By Abbey Webb Imagine being twelve years old: you are spending the day at school with friends, and your only worry is your homework, and then you wake up the next morning to war that rips your family apart and forces you into a life of violence and uncertainty incomprehensible to a child. This was the reality for Ishmael Beah, who was recruited as a child soldier during Sierra Leone’s brutal war. In his memoir A Long Way Gone, Beah recalls how his childhood was stripped away and he, like...