Kay-Leigh de Sousa
I am a jack of many trades hoping to find a specialty in the digital sphere. I studied dance and English Lit, I crochet obsessively and love to write no matter the genre. My dream is to travel more.
Location Windhoek, Namibia
Activity
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I want to know where this is going, well done.
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
Best Writing Venues
The café is literally on the sidewalk, it’s perfect for ‘people watching’. Voyeurism is such a dirty word, I am not a voyeur, I am a writer… It’s totally different. My cappa arrives with a bonus biscotti and a smile from the handsome and brooding young waiter. I mouth my thanks to him, earphones in and pencil at the ready. Today I’ve got... -
Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
Worst Writing Venue
Tick, tap, tick, tap, tick; the clock competes with my pen as it bobs against the paper. If only it were writing, but it’s not. It is uselessly swinging back and forth as I try to pull inspiration through wide, blank eyes. The wall opposite me is an expanse of white, blank like my paper. I should have hung photos by now… We’ve been here... -
Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
I have a two year old, so writing is quite a luxury at this stage. I reckon mornings somewhere outside my house is best as long as there is coffee on tap.
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
She is invisible. Well, truthfully, she is 5' 4", has dark brown, limp hair, green eyes and pasty white skin. But, for all intents and purposes, she is invisible. No-one sees her or her blue sleeping bag, neatly refolded into its bag. No-one ever sees her.
Her knees are crossed and her top foot bounces as she counts the seconds while waiting for the bus to... -
Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
Growing up we were more often poor than not and my dad was more often drunk and raging than not... So, I began to spend a lot of time in the school library. I guess I wasn't that poor after all... The escape was addictive. I began to crave it. The more I read, the more I wanted to live there and not here. I would sometimes get to the final chapter in a book...
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
We had been dancing all night, my makeup was smudged and blurred with hours of salsa and dozens of partners. As the sun rose and the club emptied we piled into Ernesto's car and headed for the riverside. Ditching the high heels we danced barefoot on the sand. The guys still could not take their eyes of Maria Luz when she danced, she was intoxicating. Which is...
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
Wow! This was great, I am going to start using it today. Thanks Emma!
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
Interesting that the death of Nelson Mandela was a big news story in Brixton. It just shows that "community journalism" can not be limited by geography.
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
I've enjoyed the course much more than I anticipated so far, however I feel that there are too many videos. Perhaps it is my internet connection, but the buffering drives me crazy. The people who present each section are really learned and high in the field so I feel like this is a great course.
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
So, I did a fairly lame attempt at this but the results were quite surprising. On Fb I shared a link about weight loss on a vegan diet and put a comment that perhaps I should go vegan. My brother immediately responded to ask if I was high ;P and 3 other friends commented. It was not as much interaction as what I had hoped but the story was a dud so I figured I...
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
Windhoek is locally referred to as "Africa for beginners". It's a beautiful city known for it's cleanliness and just went through a wonderfully peaceful election and transition period. Albeit it a desert, it is by most accounts paradise.
One recurring issue that is getting a lot coverage lately is the ridiculous price of property. This little town in the... -
Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
Interesting idea that online readers have different news desires depending on the time of the day? Wow! Are people really so predictable?
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
I am not currently planning on beginning a hyperlocal site/publications, however as a PR practitioner, I think this strategy is useful for internal communications. In a previous lesson they spoke of the perception of hyperlocal online media as "information" rather than "news". I think this is an important distinction. Presenting content as information makes...
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
As I have said before, online news in Namibia is not prevalent. I rely on newspapers and radio for local news. The radios tend to take the front page story of a newspaper as the head line story for the day. It's very repetitive. The local municipality and government ministries do not have much movement on their website.
However, I have noticed (since starting... -
Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
Wow, so 'Person of interest' is actually possible... Gosh, I'm going to be checking up on everything I hear.
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Hi Ladies. Namibian is a vast country with a very small population. Community radio would be an excellent way for small communities to create their own news. I don't even think it would be that expensive. The Comms regulator hardly charges anything for community radio station frequencies. Here in the capital, Windhoek, there are many churches and community...
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The take away point for me is the "importance of ethnicity as part of individual identity". I remember in Journ101 (a few years ago now) the professor explained that culture and other external forces have an inward impact on the identity of an individual but the individual has just as much external impact on the culture around them. Community sourced and...
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
The online data about Windhoek tells me that web access is significantly lower than other capital cities. There is very little info about politics, social activities or even traffic updates. What there is is mainly aimed at the affluent. Internet access is going to be a challenge for a community news site. Most people listen to radio to be informed.
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
I like the idea of an RSS feed or mailchimp newsletter. It doesn't have to be a website, which can be complicated technically, but even just a weekly newsletter that includes feeds from other local news sources.
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Hi Helene, your comment has helped me reconcile the two streams (Traditional media and Community news) better than anything else I have heard or read so far. By using community news to explain national news and its local impact we can really engage our communities in the governing process. If people feel heard, they will speak up more.
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Hi Andrew, great insight:
"For me community journalism is about helping the community to understand itself, celebrate achievements and to be more of a community - this is especially important in areas where there is a diverse society."
My perception was that a community news site in a homogenous communities (where differences were minimal) would have more... -
Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
I believe that community news must be 'by the community, for the community'. The format should allow community members to contribute towards news and relevant topics and in doing so the news can be self regulated. Truth or corroboration comes in sharing or confirming the news. Obviously there is more to it, but I feel this is a primary difference to...
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
The best part of this, I think, is that they take video that is sent in from the community and make stories out of that. The community has power to create news. That is what I would want to do in a local blog in Windhoek; let the locals create the news.
A caution, however, is that they imply that these journalists are volunteers. Making it pay is still the... -
Kay-Leigh de Sousa replied to Liz Cable
Good point. It seems community journalists should actively try to disguise their news as 'entertainment' especially on Facebook and YouTube. Young people don't watch the news on TV because they think it's boring. Online news is expected to be 'interesting' and not just informative.
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Kay-Leigh de Sousa made a comment
This is all fine and well in countries where broadband is prolific, here in Namibia the reach is so very limited. Perhaps a community journalism page in a Namibian town or village would have to have a print version as well.
