The banner. For most of us the most exciting part of our project but for the designers, a ‘big head ache’, they nevertheless enjoyed gathering the raw material for it, see their post on visiting the school and collecting drawings from the kids depicting what they would like their community to be like.
The Monday after our big community meeting we set out to Tantyi Primary School for the last time (sob- sob) to present the school with the banner and hand out the prizes for the best writer on our competition asking grade 5 and 6 learners to write a paragraph on crime in their communities and possible solutions. The winning entries can be read in the previous post.
It is break time. We navigate towards the school library to put up the banner. A few boys enter nervously, watching us, what we are saying to each other and then their eyes follow ours as we admire their banner. They move closer and start pointing and touching- showing each other their drawings calling their friends from outside to join in the admiration of their work.
They love smiling and posing for the camera :P We love it too! You got to love your job as a journalist when you see such happy faces. For us, having our work published and having it put out there is something we take for granted because it forms the essence of our degrees but for these kids who rarely get the opportunity to page through a magazine or a newspaper, having their names and drawing placed on a huge banner in the library for everyone to see is quite a big deal and made us see the surface of community journalism.
Handing over the prizes for the best writers; the teachers and head master expressed great gratitude for our role in encouraging their pupils, we felt pleased, arrested with a sense of contentment in our work and what our careers can allow us to do.
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