DURBAN, South Africa – Latte champion Vincent Majola took his first sip of coffee at the age of 18. At the time, he was cleaning tables at a South African coffee chain, Mugg & Bean and said he knew...
RANDBURG, South Africa – Amid a well-known stretch of antique shops that line Long Road is the storefront for a company called Upcycle that makes the old new again.
Upcycle creates and sells a wide...
ELDORADO PARK, South Africa – Say “Eldorado Park” in the Johannesburg area, and many people will think of drugs, crime and poverty.
In fact, poverty, crime and gang violence are significant...
JOHANNESBURG – When Nonhlanhla “Noni” Moroenyane first arrived in Johannesburg from the Eastern Cape in 1994 as a 9-year-old girl, her dreams were about survival, not about cooking. Certainly, she...
ORANGE FARM, South Africa – Rose Thamae was once able to employ 30 people in the men’s division of Let Us Grow, a community organization she founded in 1996 to provide support for human immunodeficiency...
ROODEPOORT, South Africa – The volunteers weren’t even looking for Mama when they found her at an illegal mining site in Durban Deep, an area 12 miles west of Johannesburg that was once home to a now-defunct...
Johannesburg, South Africa – For Johannesburg residents with chronic kidney disease, the Sultan Bahu Centre in the suburb of Mayfair is a place of hope, and necessity.
Founded nearly 40 years ago,...
Zach Podolnick, Staff Writer/Photographer
• August 31, 2024
Johannesburg, South Africa – On a clear winter’s day in late May, 19-year-old Raquel French did something that felt momentous to her: She cast a ballot in South Africa’s general elections.
“I...
Johannesburg, South Africa – A series of yellow mountains looms over the township of Riverlea, about six miles west of Johannesburg.
The mountains, known as tailings, are the result of waste materials...
Durban, South Africa – Phumzile Nkosi often breaks into song when she takes visitors on a tour of the Phansi Museum. Or she will demonstrate Zulu ceremonial dances related to some of the artifacts and...
Sophiatown, South Africa – Behind a white cement wall splashed with a colorful mural, a brick house on Toby Street in the Johannesburg suburb of Sophiatown tells the story of resilience.
The house,...
South Africa – When Reverend Nokuthula Dhladhla was a teenager, she lived in fear of what would happen if her church discovered she was a lesbian. She sat through sermons preaching about the sinfulness...
