We're often struck by the quality and variety of reader content that comes in via GuardianWitness and we think, now we're just over a year old, we should showcase it a bit more. So we're going to try and do a regular highlights blog on what we've really enjoyed or been moved by. We'd like to hear your thoughts too, so please do add comments below.
This week also coincides with the launch of the new Guardian app - and GuardianWitness is now integrated - just search for GuardianWitness assignments and add them to your home screen and you'll get all the updates.
Tea
Since it's that time of day - in the UK anyway - we thought we'd first mention the Tea assignment. The Tehran bureau set the challenge to find the best cup of tea in world. If you think your brew is better, then do share your photos.
Unusual jobs
Where have all the hedgehogs gone? Best to ask HenryJohnson, Britain's only hedgehog officer, who is charged with "helping these prickly fellas out". We also heard from a sensory panelist (which, we were horribly envious to learn, means a chocolate taster) and a freelance book indexer.
Submissions took a more serious turn when we asked for reader experiences of homophobia, and how 13 years of war in Afghanistan war had affected them.
Coming out at work
After chief executive of BP Lord Browne wrote about being out in the off, Guardian Weekend launched a callout asking for readers' experices of coming out at work. So, how far has society moved away from homophobia and transphobia? Not as far as we'd hoped, we discovered, when a reader told us she felt if she came out at work "I would be quietly judged and provided less opportunity". Others found their colleagues were accepting and feel the old prejudices are dying out.
Afghanistan
After 13 years, the British military presence in Afghanistan is about to come to an end. We asked for your experiences of how it affected you, and received some amazing and heartbreaking responses. Reader Paul Ward shares his story of his son, who after the war is "now so remote from everything". Lucy Mae shared with us:
The clock in my Director's office was wrong. "That's what time it is in Afghanistan", she said. I, too, always knew what time it was in Afghanistan. It's always on your mind. Every hour, every minute. In Loving Memory, Scott McLaren.
Your collages
"No Money, No Voice,The Vanishing Middle Class"
Bringing awareness that skilled workers and college graduates not able to find good paying jobs in the USA. We are becoming a nation of the have and have nots.
Your collages have continued to roll in to Art & Design's Share your art series and this week we particularly liked RavenSkye's contribution.
D-Day 70 years on
Our first submission to our D-Day assignment, reader wellmeanigleftie shared a wonderful photo of his father with his platoon in the days before D-Day.
Cpl Thomas Davis seated 3rd from left
My Dad with his Platoon and Lt Fry (standing to the right of group) in the days before D-Day. 8th Bn 3 Para were tasked with destroying some bridges to protect the eastern flank of the Allies from armoured counter-attack. My Dad was wounded and was sent to hospital in West Bromwich, where he met my mom (a nurse).
Weather view
From Monday to Thursday, one of the pictures submitted to our Weather View assignment ends up in the Guardian. We loved this one, submitted from Cochabamba, Bolivia:
Stormy skies over Cochabamba, Bolivia
In the 5 weeks I'd lived in Cochabamba it had rained once - that was until this week when the heavens opened for a couple of serious downpours! So much for the 'city of eternal spring...' (Taken on Thursday 22nd May 2014)
Other new assignments this week:
Humanitarian workers: show us what you're packing
Design your own World Cup posters
Life in the suburbs: share your pictures
If you want to contribute to a GuardianWitness assignment you can do so here, or feel free to send us a story or an assignment idea.
