Al Jazeera | Small Jewish communities emerge in Ivory Coast

For Al Jazeera English, I photographed a small but growing Jewish community in Côte d’Ivoire. Inside the country’s first synagogue, the Kol-Yehuda, the community has learned the prayers in Hebrew and adopted Orthodox Jewish practices.

With only 34 registered Jews in Côte d’Ivoire 20 years ago, there are now at least four different independent Jewish communities in Abidjan, each with their respective synagogues and between 20 and 300 members. Most Ivorians who have adopted Jewish practices still haven’t been officially converted to Judaism and are not recognized by Israel.

An Ivorian Jew reads the prayers in Hebrew during Shabbat services at the Kol Yehuda Synagogue and Kabbalah Centre on Friday evening. [Isabel Bonnet/Al Jazeera]

El Pais | El trauma del aislamiento en las cárceles permanece años después de la liberación

Cada vez que llega a casa, Warren Ovalle se lava las manos siete veces. No le tiene miedo a la covid-19, pero aún puede sentir la suciedad de los años que pasó en su celda de aislamiento. “Cuando no te sientes bien por dentro, no te sientes bien por fuera”, dice. “La prisión está tan sucia que siento que tengo acumulación de suciedad en mi”. Ovalle solo tenía permitido darse una ducha de 10 minutos una vez por semana. Tres años más tarde, su higiene se volvió excesiva y ahora dice tenerle fobia a los gérmenes.

Cada día, alrededor del 9% de las 48.000 personas en las 54 prisiones del estado de Nueva York están encerradas solas en una celda de aislamiento. Pueden pasar meses o incluso años sin ninguna interacción social. Múltiples estudios muestran que este tipo de castigo puede provocar ataques de pánico, ansiedad, depresión, psicosis, aislamiento social, estallidos de violencia y suicidio, incluso años después de haber sido liberados.

Vice | The Ivory Coast's Government Has Forced Thousands Into Homelessness

© Isabel Bonnet

Côte d'Ivoire is one of Africa's fastest growing economies.

Much of the country’s success has been credited to President Ouattara, whose curriculum of new infrastructure seems to inspire dreams of a modern, emergent and growing economy. It is, realistically, only the wealthy who have benefited from this.

I went to six different districts in the country's economic capital, Abidjan, and wrote about the human cost of such emergence.

Rostra | Africa's Impossible Task: Preventing the COVID-19 Outbreak in 2 Weeks

On Monday, there were roughly 5,300 registered cases of COVID-19 and over 200 deaths in the African continent.

On 17 July 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Ebola a global health emergency for the fifth time. As the world’s poorest continent continues to fight against this virus and other life-threatening diseases such as HIV and malaria, the first case of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, was confirmed in the region on February 14 in Egypt. It spread faster across the continent than it took for the testing kits to arrive.

© Isabel Bonnet

The Amsterdammer | Investigation: Dutch student media threatened to lose their independence

Ending its second year, The Amsterdammer seeks to understand the development of student journalism in the Netherlands by taking a look at the past.

Since their inception in the beginning of the 19th century, student magazines quickly gained importance around the country and today, there are roughly 45 university publications in the Netherlands. The Amsterdammer was able to talk to 17 of them.

The Amsterdammer | Participation in Pitch Competition

Thank you ASIF Ventures and Study Association Sefa for selecting The Amsterdammer as part of the P!TCH x SEFA event. I feel humbled to have had the opportunity to present my newspaper to the audience. All the start-ups were inspiring and definitely showed us the power of ideas, motivation and dedication.

© P!TCH x SEFA

Isabel Joins the #SaveStudentNewsrooms Campaign

Isabel Bonnet on the front page of the Independent Florida Alligator

Isabel has previously realised visual coverages for the Independent Florida Alligator from 2016 until 2017. Amongst them, the 2016 Presidential elections in the US, graduate football games, municipal elections and student body president elections. Isabel is the co-winner of the second place of the 2017 Florida Society of News Editor journalism contest for the "News Photography" section with the photo coverage of Pulse aftermath in Orlando and Gainesville, Fl.

Her pictures were featured several times on the front page of the printed newspaper.