Freedom Forum Sends Piggott to South Africa
Each year the Freedom Forum sends four librarians to developing countries. The program emphasizes helping these countries build and maintain their information infrastructure. Sylvia Piggott, an employee of the International Monetary Fund and former SLA President, spent two weeks in South Africa, during April and May of 1999, on the program.
The majority of her time was spent in Johannesburg at the Freedom Forum's Africa Center. There, she taught staff members how to use their current technology to create newsletters for members and brochures advertising the center and its function. Piggott also worked with the Center's staff to design a photographic exhibit of South African history. In addition she worked on the research team of a local newspaper looking into the IMF and the Gold Standard.
Piggott also spent one day in Pretoria, South Africa at the Worked Bank office teaching the staff how to do research on the internet using free resources. In Cape Town she worked at the Cape Times teaching a group of journalism students from Atlanta how to do research on the internet.
Before leaving on her trip Piggott prepared a research library on a diskette. The information included the URL's for every newspaper and school of journalism in South Africa. She then left a copy of the disk at each place she visited.
Piggott gives two reasons why others should participate in the program. First, she says it is a great opportunity to help fellow information professionals. Second, is learning a new culture first-hand.
Piggott says that she liked learning how a newsroom works. It was amazing to her to watch reporters operate under the dual pressures of meeting deadlines and having to corroborate their stories, often in a short period of time. She also enjoyed seeing the changes that freedom has brought to the country. For her seeing the human side of South Africa was moving.
When asked, Piggott listed two specific highlights from her experience. First, is the sense of doing something. She enjoyed playing a part in "providing a home for disenfranchised journalists". As she describes it, journalists, who have fled from political persecution in other African countries, use the Freedom Forum's Africa Center as a home. They use the free access to the internet, word processing and telephones to file stories and stay in touch with their families.
The second highlight of the trip was visiting the home where Nelson and Winnie Mandela lived shortly after they were married. She says that the bullet holes in each room made a very powerful statement about what they went through to bring freedom to blacks in South Africa.
The application for the 2001 fellowships is in this issue of Information Outlook. All applicants must hold a Mater's of Library Science degree from an accredited school, currently be an SLA member, and be proficient in using the internet as a research tool. It is also recommended that applicants have an interest in the news library environment. If you have any questions regarding the fellowships please contact ___________________________. The application deadline is _______________.
Since the program's inception in 1995 twenty people have visited the Freedom Forum's eleven international libraries in Europe, Asia and Africa.
Founded in 1991 as a successor to the Gannett Foundation, The Freedom Forum is an international, not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing "free press, free speech and free spirit for all people".
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