BY: NADIA ZAIDI Ethiopia will now issue identity cards to its members of the Rastafarian community – a religious group that has long been stateless. This recognition comes at a time of volatility. Rastafarians are fighting for land, language, and…
Meet the elusive and nomadic hyena men of Nigeria
BY: NADIA ZAIDI Like a scene from the Jungle Book, men in Nigeria can be seen walking around the streets with hyenas, and hence have been coined the ‘Hyena Men.’ And it’s not only hyenas that they handle. Pythons and…
The Dandy Men: Inside the colourful and expensive subculture of the Congo
BY: NADIA ZAIDI Photo Credit: Daniele Tamagni Most of us probably wouldn’t associate made-to-measure suits, the finest silk ties, and fancy smoking pipes with the areas of the world’s poorest countries. Yet, such a subculture exists in the Congo. Le…
Meet the man who is increasing food quality and quantity in Africa
Few continents in the world have had quite a time of it as Africa. The proverbial cradle of humanity, the continent and its inhabitants have suffered a variety of catastrophes over the centuries, some inflicted by humans and some not.…
African-Albino models are redefining beauty in the west
BY: NADIA ZAIDI Featured image of Thando Hopa courtesy of Instagram Albinism is one of the most unrecognized and yet scorned conditions in the world. It is inherited, and occurs in all ethnic communities. Today, models like Diandra Forrest, a black-American supermodel…
An ancient Chinese traditional medicinal herb is being used to treat malaria patients in Africa
BY: DUSTIN BATTY Although malaria is affecting people around the world from Asia to South America, the vast majority of malaria cases are in Africa. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “88% of global cases [of malaria] and 90%…
Animal conservation just got an upgrade thanks to Vulcan’s new mapping system
BY: PHILIPPE DE JOCAS Lewa Wildlife Conservancy is, in many ways, the archetypical South African safari experience. Dry, flat lands shimmer in the equatorial heat and spindly acacias rise like stately islands of green above a gently waving sea of…
The Sahara desert welcomes back once extinct antelope species
BY BROOKLYN PINHEIRO In another win for the animal kingdom an antelope that was once extinct in the wild is grazing in the fields of the Sahara once more. It has been 20 years since the Scimitar-horned oryx roamed in…
The Lost World isn’t fiction anymore – it’s real
BY: PHILIPPE DE JOCAS From the days of Christopher Columbus and Magellan, folklore and mythologies alike have abounded with fantastical tales of lost continents crawling with mythical creatures and mind-boggling features. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World brought the…
For 7 years this vagabond collected 1,000 stories from strangers who helped him on his journey
BY: JESSICA BEUKER All photos by Gabor Gabor hasn’t had a place to call home in over seven years. Instead he has spent those years backpacking the world and meeting new people. Gabor decided to document his journey through the…
Travel company launches gap year program that takes learning around the globe
BY: SAMANTHA TAPP Not all learning happens in a classroom, sometimes a plane ticket can trump a text book. Geckos Adventures, a travel company that plans adventures for 18-29 year-old travellers, is taking the popular gap year, a year-break students…
Park Rangers in the Republic of Congo are risking their lives to save the last mountain gorillas
By: Kassandra Dzikewicz All photos taken at Virunga National Park Gorillas are becoming increasingly endangered; it has been reported that there are approximately 700 mountain gorillas remaining on the planet. Since 2008, the IUCN’s red list has considered gorillas to…
Photos of Africa’s wildlife roaming free in the last protected areas of our world
BY: DANIKA MOIR Images by Laurent Baheux Laurent Baheux is a French photographer currently capturing images of animals in the last few protected areas on our planet. In 15 years, he travelled through the African Safari and East Africa and…
Here’s an incredible glimpse into the cultural wealth of a bush tribe in the vast savannah
BY: ALEX BROWN Romanian photographer, Vlad Cioplea, visited Tanzania, Africa, in Autumn of last year to document the rich and vibrant cultures that live at the foot of some of the world’s most visually stunning and occult landscapes. This photo-series…
A 5-year-long vaccination campaign has nearly cured the “meningitis belt” of Africa
BY: LISA CUMMING In 2013, the “meningitis belt” of Africa that spans from Senegal to Ethiopia had reported just four laboratory cases of Type A. In 1996 the deadly disease killed 25,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa within the space of…
A small African nation is building a massive plant to become the world’s solar super-power
BY: DAVID LAO The saying “the grass is always greener on the other side” was created to describe the inherently curious nature of humans. It has been related to envy and jealousy, but also the need to accomplish more, to…
Meet Tippi—the real-life Mowgli who spent 10 years living with wild animals
BY: JESSICA BEUKER A young ferocious child lies peacefully in the trunk of an elephant. His name is Abu and he also happens to be her best friend. The child rides ostriches and plays with cheetahs, exploring the raw and…
Photographer goes behind the scenes of an African mine to show the true cost of gold
PHOTOGRAPHY BY: MATJAZ KRIVIC They can’t read, they can’t write but they can dig. At the crack of dawn children of Burkina Faso one of the world’s poorest countries work alongside their parents slaving in the mines for fourteen hours…
Africans are fighting media poverty-porn by tweeting beautiful images of their real lives
BY: TYLER FYFE Typecast with bloated stomachs of malnutrition against a backdrop of intrastate warfare, most Westerners know the archetypal image of the unfortunate African other. And while it is true that forms of extreme poverty do exist in Africa,…
Akon is in the process of providing solar power to 600 million people in Africa
BY: DANIEL KORN Hey, remember Akon? The R&B popstar behind the 2006 sleazy club hit “Smack That”? You might not have heard much from him since then, but he’s actually been doing quite a bit, including producing songs for Kardinal…