A project takes teens from war-torn regions to schools in Canada

This short 1986 documentary follows the International Youth for Peace and Justice Tour, a programme in which teenagers from then-conflict zones around the world visited and spoke with high-school students across Canada. Capturing the tour’s stop in Montreal, the director Premika Ratnam introduces viewers to teens from unstable or war-torn nations of the period – including Northern Ireland, East Timor, Namibia, Zimbabwe, El Salvador and Guatemala – as they recount their experiences. With wisdom often beyond their years, they discuss a range of hardships, from daily indignities and lack of job opportunities to witnessing torture and murder and fearing for their lives.

Although the film is now almost 40 years old, amid ongoing conflicts affecting children around the globe it feels as relevant as ever. In conversations that are both frequently challenging and moving, the teens address how global forces including racism affect these conflicts, the lasting trauma of their experiences and the extraordinary distance between life in peaceful and war-torn places – as well as the hope and desire they share for a better world.