Fatima Moosa

One of former president Jacob Zuma’s final acts as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) was to announce free education mandate during the ANC’s National Congress in December 2017. 2018 has been a trying year for students and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) with many hiccups in the rollout. Now another student funding crisis could be looming - worsening the already strained higher education sector. The free education mandate rolled in January 2018 was based on a government plan with first…

A large number of Muslim women around the world wear headscarves as part of a partial fulfillment of the hijab.  Observing hijab is about much more than just dress code, and is by no means confined to women alone. Wearing the headscarf does make Muslim women very visible - and with that comes many questions and comments. FATIMA MOOSA rounds up some of the funny and not funny things headscarf-wearing Muslim women hear. Many Muslim woman around the world wear the headscarf for a number of reasons. Muslim women are not a…

I Want To Go Home Forever: Stories of Becoming and Belonging in South Africa’s Great Metropolis is a collection of 13 narrations that looks at the lives and stories of people in the city of Johannesburg. Edited by journalist Tanya Pampalone and academic Loren B Landau, the collections aims to tell a nuanced migration story. The Daily Vox team sat down with Pampalone to chat about the book. “We are equal where? … We discriminate against each other. That’s how racism started. That’s how xenophobia started. When you finish…

Third year students at the Johannesburg-based Ann Latsky Nursing College have continued their protest against the allegations of unfair examinations and mismanagement at the college. On Monday November 12, third-year students were prevented from entering the campus by management and public order policing. They were due to write an examination at noon. Students were also reportedly mishandled by police. http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/nursing-students-angry-over-mismanagement-unfair-exam-fatima-moosa/ The latest action at the…

Ziyaad Fredericks is a young footballer from Eldorado Park who has been given the opportunity to trial in the United States of America in 2019. The trip to the US is extremely expensive, and his family are helping him to raise funds for the trip. Growing up in Eldorado Park in the South of Johannesburg, Fredericks started playing soccer when he was seven-years-old. He has played in some of the biggest youth tournaments, and even represented the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in the 2017-2018 season. Now he wants to expand…

Caster Semenya has been on fire this year. In spite of all the obstacles she has had to face, Semenya has continued racking up the awards and flying the South African flag high. She is also one of 10 nominees for the 2018 IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federation) Female World Athlete of the Year. 🚨ALERT🚨 #AthleticsAwards announcement🤩@caster800m is one of 10 nominees for Female World Athlete of the Year 2018✅ Retweet this post to vote her👇 pic.twitter.com/l43rw4bv70 — IAAF (@iaaforg) 22 October 2018 Some of…

Co-authors of Poacher: Confession from the abalone underworld, Kimon de Greef and Shuhood Abader look visibly tired as we sit down for our interview about their book. They later tell me this is the fifth interview for the day. It’s easy to see why they are in such high demand. The book and the story it’s telling is an anomaly for the South African landscape. Poacher is a book about Abader and his time as an abalone poacher. Poaching of the small maritime creature has become an extremely lucrative criminal business in South…

“The People’s Pageant is about pushing boundaries and changing the game.” said The People’s Pageant South Africa host Bonang Matheba said at the launch of the year-long campaign. The People’s Pageant SA – a new pageant with a cause aims to celebrate South African women who are helping others to transform the world around them.  The event was the brainchild of founder Brain Gumede who thought up the idea after his sister was rejected from a pageant because she didn’t meet the beauty standards. The event seeks to embrace…

“We are satisfied that most delegates and stakeholders at the summit have signed the declaration with amendments,” said the minister of social development Susan Shabangu at a briefing, which concluded the The National Gender Summit. Shabangu said now that the declaration has been adopted, the next stage is about implementation. The summit, organised by The Total Shut Down movement and the government, brought together civil society organisations, gender activists and government to come up with solutions to end gender-based…

Dr Said Al Namrouti is a Professor at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) where he teaches management sciences. He also holds a PhD from the University of Witwatersrand. He is currently in South Africa raising awareness about the current challenges faced by higher education in the Gaza Strip. Namrouti wants to to strengthening the relationship with universities in South Africa to find ways to help students at the universities. You are aware of the difficult situation of the people in Palestine where we have been under…

Universities are often claimed to be microcosms of society with people saying understanding universities means understanding society. Rekgotsofetse Chikane says that’s not true especially at previously white universities which are bad microcosms of everyday society but a brilliant microcosm of power relations. A Fort Hare University is very different in social relations from the University of Cape Town (UCT) or University of Witwatersrand (Wits), and the power structures at Fort Hare university don’t represent our society.…

Rekgotsofetse Chikane wants to tell the story of his experience of Rhodes Must Fall. That’s the impression I get from the conversation I had with the former University of Cape Town (UCT) student leader, and his book “Breaking A Rainbow, Building A Nation.” Meeting Chikane in the Woolworths cafe at Hyde Park strikes me as very ironic. I had just started his book the previous day. In it Chikane speaks about the whitish hues of racial integration in South Africa - the Rainbow Nation narrative. Shopping malls are apparently one…

Tucked into an inconspicuous corner of West campus at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) is the Wits Food Garden - a beautiful area filled with vegetables and herbs. Providing food for needy Wits students, the garden is part of a larger project with the Food Sovereignty Centre to fight food insecurity. The Daily Vox team visited the garden and centre.Aiming to address the widespread hunger challenges faced by Wits students - the project wants create a space for students to grow, prepare, and eat their own food. Managed…

On August 1, thousands of womxn* marched in South Africa, under the banner of The Total Shutdown Movement. They demanded that the government take decisive action against the problem of gender-based violence plaguing womxn. The Total Shutdown Movement presented a list of 24 demands to the government. http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/heres-what-thetotal-shutdown-movement-is-demanding-fatima-moosa/ One of the demands from the movement was for the government to “establish and drive a multi-stakeholder and comprehensive process to…

Through a joint partnership between Spanish football league, La Liga’s South African branch and the Gauteng Department of Sport, five youngsters were afforded the opportunity to travel to Spain to experience the country’s footballing culture. The Daily Vox team spoke to the young people upon their return to South Africa. http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/we-speak-to-sas-future-football-stars-headed-to-spain-fatima-moosa/ Antonio Barradas is the La Liga Africa managing director - and is partly responsible for the Spanish trip. He…

The Proteas Women are going to West Indies for the International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s T20 World Cup. The tournament - taking place from November 9 to 24 - brings together the best of women’s cricket, battling it out for the trophy. After the disappointment of the 2017 Women’s World Cup where the Proteas lost in the semi-finals, the team are more determined than ever to bring home a trophy. http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/proteas-cried-womens-world-cup-so-what/ It was a beautiful surprise Cricket South Africa (CSA)…

Books are expensive. There is no denying that most books sold at mainstream book stores or online are astronomically expensive. People just can’t afford to spend over R300 at minimum for a single book. Yet, the importance of reading and developing a reading culture cannot be overstated. The Daily Vox team rounds up five ways to get books for less. http://www.thedailyvox.co.za/five-bookstores-where-you-can-find-alternative-literature-fatima-moosa/ Pick-A-Book Library The Reading Educational Trust has developed a book box…

The person behind the hilarious and thought-provoking Instagram account, YesImHotInThis, is coming out with a book compilation of her cartoons - Yes, I’m Hot In This: The Hilarious Truth About Life in a Hijab. Fahmy who uses her cartoons to tackle serious issues like Islamophobia, and cultural appropriation along with day-to-day issues like the dangers of online shopping, and annoying aunties. The Daily Vox team spoke to Fahmy about her upcoming book.…

They were the heaviest rains the city had seen in nearly a century. More than 5.4 million people from the Indian state of Kerala were affected by the floods, and 419 people lost their lives to them. But the death toll and damage would have been much higher, if it wasn’t for the collective efforts of the socialist Kerala government, civil society and the people. This is according to the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, an international institution which stimulates debate around issues affecting people around the…

Third-year students at the Ann Latsky Nursing school in Johannesburg protested on October 11 after raising concerns since the start of the year about mismanagement and the level of examinations they have to write. But their demands have been met with no response. The protest at the institution is the result of student dissatisfaction with the level of teaching assessments they have been getting this year. Lerato Madumo-Gova from the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union (YNITU) told The Daily Vox, “their complaints have been…