About
UNMAO's Mark Argent (right) and David Widgington (left) at mine removal site outside of Juba near E. Rejaf. Notice the white MineWolf in upper left of photo. (March 2009)
David Widgington:
I have held a keen interest in South Sudan since mid 2008, after a long conversation with a friend who had been working in southern Sudan since 2005. I realized that I knew little about southern Sudan. Canadian media coverage about Sudan was limited to the violence in Darfur and provided little context of the north-south dichotomy.
In early 2009, I decided to remedy my ignorance and visit southern Sudan. My 7-week trip brought me to villages in several regions of southern Sudan, inlcuding: Abyei, Juba, Wau, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap State. A contract aa an independent mobile journalist (MoJo) with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) allowed me to visit many CIDA-funded projects implemented by either World Vision, UNICEF or the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
I invite you to read early posts on the blog to get an impression of my 2009 visit. I was fortunate to meet and interview dozens of men and women from remote villages who generously shared their stories with me. I also met with local journalists who detailed the challenges of their work with committed enthusiasm. I invited southern Sudanese to share their life stories with me, some of which I have already edited into my Video Portrait Series.
I am a MA Media Studies graduate student at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. My topic of research is the development of the media landscape in South Sudan since the end of the 21-year civil. I am an intern at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) and will be initiating the South Sudan reporting for MIGS’ Media Monitoring Project.
Prior to my focus on South Sudan I was publisher at Cumulus Press for 10 years (1998-2008). I was a founding member of the video collective Les Lucioles, a hyperactive group that produced and screened more than 250 video short over its five-year existence.
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Visitors to the site, where are you from?
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How to get in touch?
twitter: @south_sudan
