As South Africa crossed the 100-day mark since the national lockdown was announced the country is now seeing a surge in confirmed cases with the number of people who’ve been infected reaching more than 230,000. This is serious news and our participants have been covering the developments.

Data journalism start-up Media Hack Collective’s coronavirus  dashboard has all the latest statistics on the number of confirmed cases, deaths and recoveries. The number of active cases is now 121,558 and deaths have gone up to 3,720. On the other hand the country has seen more than 113,000 recoveries which should offer some solace.

gsport for girls goes global

SAMIP participant gsport for girls is now well into their plans for the 2020 Momentum gsport Awards with entries now open. The women’s sports platform recently announced their global expansion with the kick-off of the #gsportGlobal initiative.

The initiative includes the addition of a new gsport chapter in Surat, India as well as the addition of African and Global award categories that will be announced at this year’s awards.

Podcasts new and current

Our participants are also hard at work in developing new podcasts and releasing new episodes of current shows.

The Daily Vox’s ‘Critical Stans’ show released their latest episode that saw them dive into the issue of One Direction’s Zayn Malik and what the singer means to fans of the group who are people of color.

Not Yet Uhuru’s podcast on women empowerment, ‘What’s Love Podcast’, took on the topic of child maintenance and the various issues around it. Food for Mzansi’s podcast, ‘Farmer’s Inside Track’, featured interviews with up and coming agriculture entrepreneurs and thought-leaders. Their latest podcast for children, ‘Thandi and Captain Safe’, discussed how young learners can stay safe as the pandemic continues in the country.

Volume released a new show, called ‘Access’, that they are producing for the Health Justice Initiative (HJI). The HJI is a recently established law and policy unit that was founded by former Open Society Foundation of South Africa director Fatima Hassan.

Our participants continue to make us proud as they break stories, explain issues and drive innovation in South Africa’s media landscape.