South Africa: Students blogging while studying abroad

World Cup mania hits South Africa, but local designers and artists are largely shut out of the opportunities to capitalize on it. A freedom fighter, released from prison after 14 years, stays behind to tell his story to tourists. Rogue activists tear down makeshift walls around community toilets in a poor township. These are stories told by two USC Annenberg students working in South Africa this summer.

Zahra Nealy and Daniel Harju, graduate students in public relations, are writing and posting photos weekly on the South Africa Dispatch blog.

In one of Harju's latest posts, he tells the story of working with a young musician to record a poem he wrote, Democracy is That Road to Freedom. The 17-year-old was inspired to write it after talking to his dad, who fought in the struggle against apartheid. Harju’s post tells more about how that project came together.