Grocott’s Mail Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism students embarked on a Solidarity Journalism project this week, exploring the impact of the underdevelopment of Alicedale on the people who live there. Academic and researcher into Solidarity Journalism, Anita Varma, describes the practice as taking a stand for dignity and against suffering. Solidarity Journalism is a representation of the structural constraints that prevent oppressed people from resolving social injustice, and is news that includes calls for “collective action against injustice”, Varma says.
In the following stories, student journalists Fahdia Msaka, Benny Mojela, and Buhle Andisiwe Made take a look at the Alicedale residents’ lived experiences of sewage leaks, a lack of shops, a deeply potholed dirt main road, and the absence of tap water.