NI 493 - June, 2016

Love in the time of Ebola

A note from the editor

Ebola, as told by Sierra Leoneans

This edition is something of a journalistic experiment. It’s the product of a collaboration with a remarkable group of Sierra Leonean citizen reporters. Trained by media advocates On Our Radar, they give us a privileged insight into the aftershocks of Ebola in this corner of West Africa.

The reporters took me on a journey from the coastal capital Freetown in the west to the early epicentre in the remote east; their stories reveal Ebola’s lasting impact on friendship, community and the ties that bind us to one another.

More than half of this magazine’s Big Story is given over to reporters’ accounts, where they relate their experiences, and those of their friends and neighbours, in their own words (see Where my father lies and Everything is on my shoulders).

This joint-effort storytelling is thanks to a partnership with On Our Radar, who use new technology to bring people from the margins on to the front page. The citizen reporter pieces you read in this magazine grew out of SMS messages on a hub that functions like a glass-sided story beehive – visit nin.tl/AfterEbolaHub to see how ideas germinated and took root to become features.

This month, the magazine is actually only the half of it. We are also delighted to be publishing web documentary vignettes from our citizen reporters. Don’t miss it: newint.org/after-ebola

This multiplatform Ebola project has been made possible by the European Journalism Centre (EJC) via its Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Programme.

Elsewhere in the magazine, we reveal the inner workings of special tribunals that we will be seeing more of if TTP and TTIP trade deals are successful.

Hazel Healy for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org

The big story

On high alert, post-Ebola: Nafisatu Jabbi (centre right) at the Koindu community clinic, accompanied by a newly replenished staff team, including Community Health Officer Alfonsus Vandi (centre left).

Photo: Hazel Healy

NI 493 - June, 2016

Love in the time of Ebola

A note from the editor

Ebola, as told by Sierra Leoneans

The big story

And will Sierra Leone be ready, should the virus return? Hazel Healy travelled there to find out.

Features

Statistics and more on the spread of the virus through West Africa.

Mariama B Jalloh’s quest to find her father’s grave.

Mamie Lebbi, the first woman to test positive for Ebola, describes how she survived in the bush with her husband’s help.

Bankolay Turay’s story of student romance on ice.

Gangsters turned mobilizers, the Tripoli Boys kicked Ebola out of their neighbourhood. Amjata Bayoh and Mohamed S Camara find out what happened next.

Elizabeth Katta talks about the lingering impacts of teenage pregnancy, which spiked during Ebola.

Serah Tomba went from being a student to sole carer of seven orphans.

Roxana Olivera meets indigenous women in Peru who are still waiting for justice, two decades after being forcibly sterilized.

How new trade deals – and Investor-State Dispute Settlements in particular – are giving more power to companies to sue countries for lost profits.

Web exclusives

Plunging temperatures test the survival skills of the country’s nomadic herders, as this photo essay by Madoka Ikegami shows.

The landscape, and the local peoples’ livelihood, have irrevocably changed, Gary Wockner reports in this photo essay.

Mustapha Dumbaya lost 47 relatives in the outbreak. He explores why dysfunctional R&D is letting down those people who need it most.

Blogs

Human rights and journalism organizations have responded but the incoming president is dismissive of their concerns, reports Iris C. Gonzales.

Britain’s EU referendum has unleashed a complex set of crises and challenges. Vanessa Baird tries to look ahead.

Opinion

Kate Smurthwaite has an idea for how men can truly be feminist.

Mark Engler hails a significant victory for workers in the US.

Agenda

Youth sue over climate; Jobs for refugees; Dam slams to a halt; King coal deposed.

Regulars

EU referendum irrelevant; kick fossil fuels out of the arts; and Tasmania's tree threat.

Ruby Diamonde travels to the bush in search of an answer to a difficult question.

Greg Wilpert reports on a country diverse in geography, politics and people.

Cartoon by Simon Kneebone.

Cartoon by P J Polyp.

José Antonio Rodríguez García from Mexico with ‘Hug’

Marc Roberts' latest cartoon strip.

Smoke and ash in Afghanistan.

The Western Saharan singer and activist on Cuban solidarity, life as a refugee, and making her grandmother proud.

Film, Book & Music Reviews

Une Meeles by Maarja Nuut; Thankful Villages Vol. 1 by Darren Hayman.

Tale of Tales, directed by Matteo Garrone; Where to Invade Next, directed by Michael Moore; Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare), directed by Gianfranco Rosi.

¡No Pasarán! Writings from the Spanish Civil War, compiled by Pete Ayrton; Islam Beyond the Violent Jihadis by Ziauddin Sardar; The New Russia by Mikhail Gorbachev; Today we drop bombs, tomorrow we build bridges by Peter Gill.

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