Waterless

This week, learn about how The Gambia’s plentiful water supply has actually been causing major health problems across the country. It’s story of how a country with plentiful water resources is failing to provide safe water to its people. Our host, Winston Mwale speaks to investigative journalist Lamin Jahateh and photographer Jason Florio the duo behind the story, “The Gambia’s Water Paradox [https://ccij.io/article/water-paradox-in-the-gambia/],” which covers the full extent to which the water system is failing a large population of Gambians. The groundbreaking story synthesizes data collected over the past years and tells the stories of citizens who, over past years, have been sickened by the water in a country with no shortage of it.

What role, if any, can pictures play in telling water-related stories? Are there any special tricks that journalists who are planning to cover water-related stories can employ to make their stories lively? In this episode, host, Winston Mwale, speaks to Nengi Nelson, a photographer and budding film maker born and raised in Port Harcourt Nigeria. Nengi, together with Festus Iyorah and Yuxi Wang, recently published a story titled “Waterpreneurs” cash in on government failure to deliver clean water to islanders” in Nigeria on CCIJ website. It’s a story that talks about the struggles for water a daily reality for impoverished Nigerian island residents. Our host Winston Mwale talks to Nengi about this interesting story and her role, which was essentially photographing. How important are pictures in production of stories?

In the previous episode, our host, Winston Mwale, spoke to Lesotho-based investigative journalist, Pascalinah Khabi, who, together with Sechaba Mokhethi, recently did a great story titled “water, water everywhere…but not a drop to drink”. Apart from the great pictures that accompanied it, the story also had great data visualizations that were done by Yuxi Wang, a freelancing writer, and data journalist. In this episode, Winston talks to Yuxi about her for passion for data storytelling, visualization, and her recent data visualizations for the story “Waterpreneurs”, which talks about government’s failure to deliver clean water to islanders” in Nigeria. What was Yuxi’s major role in the story? In her opinion, what was so unique with this particular story, as far as data visualization was concerned?

The idiom "so close, yet so far" or "so near and yet so far" rings true for communities living within sight of Lesotho’s two biggest dams. The villagers endure a daily struggle to access safe water because the “white gold” they can see, but cannot reach, is destined for neighbouring South Africa. In this episode, host, Winston Mwale, speaks to Lesotho-based investigative journalist, Pascalinah Khabi, who, together with Sechaba Mokhethi, recently did a great story titled “water, water everywhere…but not a drop to drink” which was published on CCIJ website. It’s a story that talks about how diseases keep on stalking some villages in Lesotho, as the country sells water to South Africa.

For the start of our third season of the Waterless podcast, we will be hearing from Lois Henry, the CEO and editor for SJV Water, an independent and non-profit news organization dedicated to covering water in the San Joaquin Valley. In this episode, Henry discusses her work on her most recent piece titled, "The Central California Town that Keeps on Sinking" that was recently published in collaboration with the CCIJ and The New York Times. The piece focuses on the small town in the San Joaquin Valley known as Corcoran and investigates the causes behind the town's slow but sure sinking process. The town has sunk close to 12 feet within the last 14 years and Henry believes she knows why. Listen to this latest episode to learn of her discoveries!