Martin Savidge in the Worldfocus studio.

Martin Savidge, who hosted the show for much of its run, comments on the end of the program:

Well, gang, our nightly global road trip has come to an end. There’s no point dwelling on the why. Sometimes that is just the way it is.

Even so, I will miss the show and all of you. We shared a common passion and interest wanting to know more about the rest of the world which we share. We wanted more than just the big, mostly violent, headlines preferring the simple intimate portraits of life and people in other places. We traveled far to find stories that in many ways reminded us of our own. The good news was it wasn’t all bad news.

So maybe it’s time to take a break and unpack. You know, catch up on the laundry and the mail all that kind of stuff you do when you come off the road. It’s also time to recharge, rethink and plan for the next journey. I’ll be out there somewhere. There is still too much to see and get to know.

Not sure where I’m going just yet but isn’t that the fun of it? Let’s stay in touch, I’m not a hard man to track I’m on Facebook so look for me.

Yes it’s sort of sad but it’s also not so bad. We had a wonderful adventure I know that because like any great journey it feels ended too soon.

Wishing you safe travels and friendly customs agents!

The Worldfocus newsroom, with Sally Garner in the foreground.

Sally Garner, who was a producer at Worldfocus, writes about her experience:

More than 2,000 viewers have written to say they will miss Worldfocus. Ratings surveys show more than 300,000 were watching. But behind the scenes there were just a few dozen people writing, editing, reporting, researching, telephoning, creating graphics, searching for experts, and on every single day — laughing.

Yep, a newsroom filled with generally happy people. That’s what happens when a good idea gets off the ground with a great staff.

We found out, whether it was our first job in TV news, or maybe our last, that it’s a team sport. We may be going off the air, but there’s not a chance I will forget looking across three long tables in an open workspace and marveling at what was happening.

Our newsroom (pictured above right) might look like a meeting room to you, but that was the whole place, the whole staff. I’m proud to have been a part of it and I will miss every person who shared the experience of Worldfocus.

Oh, and may I say to my colleagues — table one rules.

Mohammad Al-Kassim at work.

Mohammad Al-Kassim, a Worldfocus associate producer, recalls his time on the show.

The last 18 months have been the best in my life — with all its ups and downs. I was blessed with the honor of working with some of the best in the journalism profession. I came here with a little bit of knowledge of the profession of journalism, and I leave today with the experience of a lifetime. Worldfocus has enriched my life in so many ways, and it made coming to work every day a moment I looked forward to.

Edie Magnus, a Worldfocus correspondent who reported from Chile, Canada and Brazil, writes about her memories:

I was always pleased and proud to contribute to the content of Worldfocus.

Edie Magnus fills in at the anchor desk.

Whether I traveled overseas to report or watched from home, I always learned something that was actually NEW in the Worldfocus news.

Worldfocus offered a window into the lives of others beyond our shores that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else. Each night was a gift.

I hope PBS will find another way to put the world’s pressing issues on our collective radar. In the meantime, the Worldfocus staff should feel very proud of the work it did to make it happen, and I wish my colleagues success as in taking this experience into the next meaningful project.

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The El Gaara sisters, who live in Rabat, Morocco, are athletic champions who compete in Paralympics against other athletes with dwarfism. Their story came to the attention of Moroccan filmmaker Reda Fakhar, who used it as a window to explore the life of short people in his country.

While its subject matter may be unusual, this story’s themes – about acceptance, perseverance, and persistence – are universal.

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We met up with H-Kayne in a Meknes studio while reporting on a story about Sufism. Their biggest hit, “Issawa Style,” pays tribute to the renowned Sufi brotherhood of the same name.

Although they cultivate an image of urban grittiness, in person the young men are surprisingly earnest. During the visit, they performed a freestyle song about the importance of education. And they take pride in their music’s wide appeal to a broad cross-section of Moroccans.

In this brief interview, the members of H-Kayne discuss their musical influences, including Moroccan traditional music such as Aissawa and Gnawa.

– Rebecca Haggerty

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In the course of her interviews, she meets a young female cabbie in Mumbai whose identity reveals a surprisingly complex convergence of faith, fashion and femininity.

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Translations courtesy of United Sikhs.

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A woman walks along one of the slabs at the Memorial Parque to the disappeared in Buenos Aires. Photo: Peter Eisner

I was irritated some weeks ago by the comments of Jose Moya, a Barnard College professor, who said on Worldfocus that Argentinians have increasingly little memory of the “Dirty War” of the 1970s and 1980s. “Eventually it will become something like Franco in Spain that fewer and fewer people remember,” Moya said.

He was wrong about Argentina, and wrong about Spain. Both countries are doing much to make sure new generations remember the victims of state-sponsored murder.

The depth of my disagreement with Moya became clear recently during a visit in Buenos Aires to the Parque de la Memoria along the River Plate, which commemorates the deaths of at least 20,000, perhaps 30,000 people at the hands of Argentina’s military government. It reminded me in some way of the Vietnam Memorial, listing thousands of names on slabs of stone, giving substance to the names of mostly young people whose lives were swept away.

Strange thing about the place. It has the look of a monument that hasn’t been finished yet, although it was authorized to be built 12 years earlier.

A statue offshore, commemorates missing Argentinians during the Dirty War. Their bodies were sometimes hurled into the waters of the River Plate. Photo: Peter Eisner

It is surrounded by barbed wire, empty spaces patrolled by lone guards, at first it seems no one has been there. And then, moving in on the names, I saw little yellow flowers crammed in the chinks. People have come to see the names and remember the loved ones who disappeared often without a trace. When I focused in on the names, I could see each was listed by year with their ages when they died. Most of those listed were very, very young.

From 1976 to 1983, the Argentinian military government practiced state terrorism. They dragged away supposed agitators and terrorists who most of the time where innocent teachers, students, union activists, philosophers, musicians, then tortured and killed them.

Beyond the windswept monument, I looked out to the broad, ocean-like River Plate. On a rock, just offshore, stands the statue of a person facing the waves, symbolizing the people whose bodies were dumped in the river and swept away.

“The list of names on this monument include the victims of state terrorism, those detained, disappeared and murdered, and those who died fighting for the very ideals of justice and fairness.” Photo: Peter Eisner.

Argentinian writers still focus on the Dirty War, artists produce pictures and sculptures, filmmakers make movies, in order not to forget. In some cases, mothers and grandmothers still search for children who were taken in infancy, given fake names and adopted by the torturers of their parents.

In Spain, meanwhile, more than 70 years after the Spanish Civil War, family members are still hunting for mass graves of the victims of Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s regime. The Civil War still haunts Spanish society. In both countries, there are revisionist historians and extremists who try to minimize the brutality or rewrite history, as if the cause of the murders was somehow more justified with time. But monuments, journalism and art will protect and ensure the persistence of memory, and the accuracy of history.

– Peter Eisner

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