News Release
April 2002

Moravian student to intern as reporter in South Africa

(Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) - In June, Stacie Roos '03 (Lehighton, PA) will head for Cape Town, South Africa, where she has a two-month internship as a reporter on a newspaper for the homeless called The Big Issue.

The paper is part of a chain, the International Network of Street Papers, begun in Great Britain to address the increasing numbers and concerns of homeless and unemployed people.

Roos, of Lehighton, is majoring in history, though she says she may declare a double major in political science. She found the internship with help from her friend Christopher Colley '03, Easton, and visiting assistant professor of history James Meier, who wrote his dissertation on the squatter colonies that ring Cape Town.

Colley, who has relatives in Africa, is majoring in history and political science and has completed an honors project on the unending war in Angola.

Roos's interests don't stop with Africa. She, Colley, and three other Moravian students spent spring break backpacking through Peru and Bolivia.

The South African edition of The Big Issue, launched in 1996, is edited by Glenda Nevill and sold by more than 2,400 vendors, most of them homeless and employed, who buy it for 3.5 rand per copy and sell it for 6.5 rand.

As it originated in England, the idea is for the vendors to retain the profits and earn their way out of poverty. The newspaper company also offers an array of support services, from counselors to computer classes to savings accounts, for its vendors.