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New Hampshire Residents March for Peace in Concord

By Cheryl Senter on Friday, September 29, 2006.

Hundreds of New Hampshire residents come to Concord to register their opposition to the War in Iraq.

Freelance producer Cheryl Senter was there and brings us these sounds from the march.

Soccer is My Weapon

By Dan Gorenstein on Thursday, September 28, 2006.

They call soccer, the world's game. And for years, the world has played at Manchester Central. 25 years ago kids came from Greece and Italy. Today, it's Colombia and the Sudan.

For the players, soccer is not just sport- it's a connection to the life they left behind, and their ticket to a new life in the US. You don't have to speak English well, or know pop music to shine on the soccer field.

But a brilliant performance on the field doesn't guarantee success in school or life.

For our final installment of Culture Lessons, Dan Gorenstein spent time with one of Central's star players- a Sudanese refugee- to see how far soccer has taken him.

Diversity: The Gap Between Theory and Practice

By John Rudolph on Wednesday, September 27, 2006.

At Manchester Central High School, the diversity of the student body is obvious to anyone who walks into the cafeteria. The athletes have their table, as do the Goths, the cheerleaders, the over-achievers, the Arabs, the Hispanics and the Somalis. Finding your group and sticking with it is part of teenage life.

But there is a hope, heard mostly from adults, that in the middle of this diversity, students would be willing to cross those dividing lines.

Culture Lessons, our series on Manchester Central, continues with a report from producer John Rudolph. He offers this look at at how students and Central's principal reflect on the make-up of their school.

A Moslem Audio Diary

By John Rudolph on Tuesday, September 26, 2006.

Last spring, as part of Culture Lessons, we asked Sundis Mahmood to keep an audio diary. Sundis is a Pakistani immigrant who was about to graduate. In addition to recording her own thoughts Sundis spoke to her sister and some of her friends. Here is some of what she recorded.

The Puzzle of Hispanic Students

By John Rudolph on Tuesday, September 26, 2006.

Manchester Central is New Hampshire’s largest and oldest public high school, and its most diverse. Refugee and immigrant teenagers from nearly 70 countries attend classes at Central.

This week NHPR is presenting Culture Lessons - a series of reports and special programs about the school.

There are hundreds of kids at Central from Latin America and the Spanish-speaking islands of the Caribbean. Unlike refugees, who are sponsored by resettlement agencies, most Latinos are immigrants who arrived in Manchester on their own. As John Rudolph reports, Latino students at Central High School face a unique set of challenges.

Principal John Rist On His School

By John Rudolph on Monday, September 25, 2006.

As part of Culture Lessons, John Rudolph speaks with Manchester Central principal John Rist about diversity, education and "Central Pride."

Moslem Women Chart a Careful Course

By John Rudolph on Monday, September 25, 2006.

Being a teenager in America means questioning everything. At least that’s true for many teenagers. But if you are Muslim and female and an immigrant or refugee, life can be less about questioning, and more about learning to navigate. Today in our week-long series Culture Lessons, John Rudolph reports on Muslim girls at Manchester Central High School. Of all the students at the school, they are the ones most obviously searching for a way between American culture and the culture of the country they left behind.

Somali Students Face Deadline

By Amy Quinton on Sunday, September 24, 2006.

In 2004, about 40 students from Africa showed up at the doors of the school.

Most were Somali Bantu - and had just arrived in the United States after spending years living in refugee camps in Kenya.

Unlike other immigrants or refugees whose main challenge might be that they don’t speak English, the Somali students didn’t know how to read or write in any language.

This fall, they face a critical test of how much they've learned since they arrived. As we hear from Amy Quinton, for the first time, these African students must attend mainstream academic classes.

Peterborough Woman Wants To Build New Urbanist Development

By Amy Quinton on Thursday, September 21, 2006.

A New Hampshire woman’s first adventure into real estate hopes to change a long pattern of what she says is bad development.

The Peterborough resident is hoping to build a new pedestrian-friendly “smart growth” community near downtown.

She’s asked the entire town to take part in its design.

But as New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports, not everyone in Peterborough thinks the idea is so smart.

Nashua Pilot Places Second In World Aerobatics Championship

By Lisa Peakes on Thursday, September 21, 2006.

Lisa Peakes talks with Rob Holland, of Aerial Advantage Aviation, about his second place win in Poland in the World Aerobatics Championship - and what it's like to fly 250 miles an hour - upside-down.