Day 2 and 3 - Preparations for story ideas

For two days we had back to back lectures about Juskei and multimedia reporting.



We also went through different websites to get ideas for our website. I realised that there is more to this project than just reporting on peoples' stories.



We have to think about the whole design of the website, how we want our stories to form part of the website. When thinking about my story I need to consider how I am going to use audio, if I want to use it and how I want my images to tell the story.



Everything is going to need planning. I cannot just think of a story and go out there and write it, I constantly need to have the bigger picture in mind.



One of the speakers, Dr Diane Duke spoke about the condition of Juskei river. She told us how the whole river is polluted, even by Zoo Lake and Craighall Park. Nobody is safe from its condition.

I was glad to know that the Juskei does not end up in Johannesburg drinking water but unfortunately for Pretoria residence, Juskei flows in to Hartbeespoort Dam which is Pretoria's source for drinking water...but it does get cleaned.



A polluted river affects people by the river in so many different ways. It is not physically and psychologically healthy, and children are not safe as they could get hurt playing. Another problem that arises when a river is polluted is, it says something about the community living around it. For example the people in Alexandra use the river as the dustbin as there are not enough dustbins in the area. Service delivery in the area is also very slow. The politics of our country just jump out at you just looking at the conditions.



BezValley is another place of interest. The surburb used to be posh, there is evidence of that by just looking at the structure of the houses but things have changed. BezValley is a shadow of what it used to be. I am sure the old people there will have plenty to say about their history and the present.



Things are starting to get clearer for me as I have more of an idea of what to do. My focus will be gender and family...I think.