Assembly/Presentation at Nyaluza

We officially launched the anti-littering campaign this morning, the Nyaluza school took it on well. One of the geography students spoke in front of the assembly where approximately 100 students were gathered and then the drama students did their skit and it created dialogue which lead to singing and chatting about it. Afterwards the school went around picking up papers for twenty minutes before their classes. The learners' reaction was interesting some wanted to pick up yet it seemed 'uncool', however as they saw other students missioning around and picking up litter they warmed up to the idea.

My only concern is the sustainability of the project itself. I think perhaps once a month this could be done so as to entrench and create a culture of picking up litter around their school. And Tinyiko suggested we produce a dvd and send it to other schools around the Grahamstown, so that it could be a model to follow and hopefully be something of value. Tomorrow is the last event on our radio/photojourn agenda, we are taking the learners to the river clean up organised by Grass. I'll fill you in later...

hey guys,

Just in case you think the writers are slacking. I am here to assure you that there are many stories being written, we just saving them for Grocott's. Putting them on the blog, may ruin their novelty.

The Drama Students recording

Caution for all Prof Green Thumb Members: Issues of Representation in Journalistic Media Output

One of the most difficult things about journalistic media output is that there will always be some type of unease with the manner in which sources are represented. Mainstream journalistic writing which still in some degrees dances to the tune of objectivity often results in a journalistic output that represents sources as objects. Moreover it tends to reinforce the stereotypes that have come to be associated with certain groups of people and also perpetuates widely held ideologies that are oppressive and disempowering to those whom they exclude. I feel that we as student journalists need to be very aware of this, seeing that most of us are working with learners that attend so-called ‘disadvantaged’, ‘historically disadvantaged’, ‘currently disadvantaged’, ‘underprivileged’ schools…whatever it is… you see even these categories and supposedly politically correct/incorrect terms are incredibly problematic. Although, the fact that we are employing a participatory-civic form of journalism should ease the burden created by this tension, I still think it is important that our journalistic output (be it posters, PSAs, how-to videos or sound slides) represent the learners we are working with as active agents and subjects that are having a positive impact on their immediate environment, through whatever it is they are participating in – be it an anti-littering campaign, a PSA stigmatises littering, or a paper making initiative that promotes recycling.

The drama students

Anti-littering campaign/PSA

The campaign is up and running, we were successful and even more students joined on board. We had too much fun, despite our car accident, and a great deal was covered. Tinyiko and Kim set up the dustbin painting [which they will speak about it detail] and Sean and I were heading up the first part of the PSA with the drama students. I loved how those students were keen and on fire as soon as we started rehearsing and taking pics. Although in the beginning they didn't like the script or weren't too comfortable with it because of the English words but as I said we had a workshop and after 30minutes they started losening up, getting used to the script and adding onto the it using Xhosa- the rehearsal went well. Later today the students are coming into the radio labs to record to the PSA -our only issue is transport and catering, so we are going to get Alna's bakkie and hopefully the nine drama studentss can all squeeze in the bakkie and we'll be making sandwiches so that they do not get hungry. Hopefully it'll all go well!

The bigger picture

Our anti-littering project with Nyaluza High School starts tomorrow. Learners will be painting old cardboard boxes to use as much needed dustbins in the school. This innovative project aims to teach learners of the environmental consequences of littering. These pictures hope to raise awareness about the negative impact of waste. These are a few photos of the local rubbish dump in Grahamstown.