Raising The Mamelodi Voice

Marenet Jordaan, one of the Journalism lecturers at the University of Pretoria, shares some insight on The Mamelodi Voice.

Three years ago the Journalism students of the University of Pretoria began a reporting project in Mamelodi. Most were new to the area, and many said they felt lost. This changed quickly when they met the people of Mamelodi, who opened up their hearts and poured out their stories of goodwill, hope and, yes, sometimes heartache.

Since 2010 we have made many friends here. We love coming back to visit the projects, schools and clinics that do so much to uplift and encourage this community. The Mamelodi Voice is our attempt at giving a voice to the friends we have made along the way. We want to be a place where the efforts-and struggles-of these community heroes can be visible to everyone around them.

However, we are not in the business of providing only free publicity. We do real reporting and photojournalism. Where there is good news, we will tell it. Where there are problems,we will report on them as well.

Doing reporting in Mamelodi is also a wonderful learning opportunity for our Journalism students. They get the opportunity to get out of the comfort zone of the classroom and into real life reporting situations. While this might be uncomfortable, it is the quickest way to learn. We applaud the second year Journalism class of 2012 for their determination and innovation during this reporting project.

To the staff of the Summer 2012 edition of The Mamelodi Voice: you have put together and exceptional publication. You can be proud of the way you worked together as a team. But you should be especially proud of the way you managed to make this a community newspaper.

For in the end, The Mamelodi Voice belongs to Mamelodi