The short video My Escape From Syria: Europe or Die brought to light the many fears migrants from Syria face as they escape to Europe in hopes of a greater future. In the news, stories of migrants are often critical and focus predominantly on the economic impacts that they have on the nations these migrants travel to. Rarely, however, do I see articles on prominent new sources chronicling the journeys and risks these individuals face when fleeing their nation. What I thought this short video truly showed the viewer was how the actions and feelings these migrants went through stemmed from the most genuine sources of human nature: how the men in the boat held onto each other in fear and solidarity, the horrid feeling of loss when their friend (who could easily have been them) was electrocuted and never heard from again, the sense of never feeling in control – as they questioned if they could even trust a stranger to drive them out of Hungary.

There is a common practice in the way that migrants and refugees are interpreted in the USA: uneducated on this topic, people commonly just see them as numbers or data points set to reveal which nations cause the most burden on the rest of society. In the media frenzy that the world lives in today, it is not hard to understand why people have come to think that way (for example, almost everyday there is another news article condemning Chancellor Merkel for taking in new refugees with graphs showing some kind of negative impact this will have on Germany). However, it’s personal and human moments like the ones shown in this video, that must continue to be spread in order for people to start turning the conversation from “what harm do migrants bring us?” to “what can we do to protect these individuals and prevent this from happening in the future?”. I believe that education and information is the best way to support the migrant crisis in the future and it starts with stories like these.