2010 Ruth First Fellows announced

The University of Witwatersrand has announced the 2010 Ruth First Fellowships to Christa Kuljian and Crystal Orderson for two topical and contentious issues. The Fellows will present their research at the Ruth First Lecture in August 2010 and publish/broadcast both journalism and academic papers arising out of it.

15 Apr 2010

Kuljian, a writer and development consultant, will be researching the complex contestation around Johannesburg Central Methodist Church and the thousands of displaced people it houses. She specialises in "engaging stories of development from the perspective of people on the ground." She graduated from Wits' Creative Writing Masters programme in 2007 and has a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton and an undergraduate degree from Harvard. She was director of the C S Mott Foundation in South Africa from 1992 to 2003.

Orderson, a senior SABC journalist, will be taking an in-depth look at the survival tactics of Mitchell's Plain women who receive social grants. She is best known for her recent reporting for SABC from West Africa. She has been a senior political reporter at the national broadcaster since 2003 and has an MA from Sussex University and BA from UCT.

The Fellowships,run in partnership with Wits Journalism, promote in-depth journalism in the socially engaged and independent tradition of assassinated writer and activist Ruth First, who was murdered by apartheid agents in Maputo in 1982.