"Three years ago, Global Press reporter Linda Mujuru stood knee-deep in the Odzi River in eastern Zimbabwe, surrounded by gold miners. The miners sold the gold they found to middlemen, who in turn sold it to the government. This is common in Zimbabwe, Africa's ninth-largest gold producer. Regulations ban the use of mercury in and around Zimbabwe's rivers. The miners use it anyway to separate gold from sediment. Mercury fumes cause brain damage in both miners and other users of river water."
"That story was published on the Global Press Journal website. But more importantly, it was published in The Zimbabwe Independent. That's how people in Mutare, Zimbabwe's third-largest city, learned that the mercury used in and around the river could kill them. They demanded change. The government soon announced that it would enforce the ban on mercury. The story won the Community Champion Award from the Institute for Nonprofit News."
Linda Mujuru reported from the Odzi River where gold miners used mercury despite regulations banning its use in and around rivers. Mercury fumes cause brain damage in miners and other river users. Local publication of the story in Mutare spurred public demand and led the government to announce enforcement of the mercury ban. Reporting similarly prompted Goma city authorities to establish a home for ostracized former child soldiers and convinced the Nepali government to issue identity documents to children born to Nepali women working abroad. Reporting also helped end virginity testing in Mongolian schools. Success was measured by changed minds, lives and laws rather than pageviews.
Read at Poynter
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