Uprooted: Heartache and Hope in New Hampshire
Stories of Refuge and Resilence
Uprooted: Heartache and Hope in New Hampshire is a 30-minute documentary that tells the story of five refugees who escaped from war-torn countries to resettle in New Hampshire. Through their voices, Uprooted explores what it means to begin again in a place where everything feels unfamiliar, often without English language skills, family, employment, or community connections. The film raises enduring questions about belonging and citizenship. What does it mean to be an American? Once a refugee, are you always a refugee? What are our responsibilities toward one another?
By sharing these honest, often poignant stories, the documentary offers a compelling window into the struggles, hopes, and resilience of individuals who are too often overlooked. It also shows how compassion and a willingness to stand together can shape a community where everyone is welcomed with dignity.
Story Preservation Initiative wishes to thank the University of New Hampshire Center for the Humanities for allowing us to make this film available to those in our Learning Lab community.
To support deeper student engagement with the issues presented in Uprooted, SPI created two companion resources: an Oral History Guide and a Photovoice Guide, both can be accessed from the SPI Learning Lab drop-down menu at the top of the page.
Oral History Guide
This guide helps students learn from others' lived experiences through structured interviews. It offers clear, step-by-step instructions for planning, conducting, and preserving meaningful conversations. The process encourages empathy, active listening, and cross-cultural understanding.
Photovoice Guide
Photovoice is a visual storytelling method that allows participants to use photographs to express personal or community experiences. This guide provides students with practical guidelines for capturing and interpreting images related to resettlement, identity, and belonging. Photovoice promotes creative expression, critical thinking, and a powerful way to share stories that might otherwise remain untold.
About Story Preservation
Our Mission: Story Preservation Initiative believes in the transformative power of story to connect people around our common humanity and create a better future.
Our Work: We are a leading producer and online distributor of original, content-rich audio-based narratives for K-12 students. SPI stories are the raw materials of history, roadmaps to scientific discovery, and windows to the minds of artists and skilled tradesmen and women.
What We Achieve: SPI brings listeners into personal contact with extraordinary people whose stories engage their hearts and minds, imparting content knowledge and fostering curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking as they open doors to possible career paths in professions associated with the arts, sciences, humanities, and skilled trades. We are fully open-source.
When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.
Please consider making a tax-free donation to SPI. We are an open-source educational nonprofit dependent upon the generosity of contributors. Every donation made helps us keep the stories and projects coming.