Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Disclaimer: This story contains accounts of gender-based violence. Each of the girls mentioned has agreed to share their stories in the hopes of inspiring others.
In Cape Town, South Africa, young girls are reclaiming their voices and their power. Their motto is “wathint’abafazi wathint’imbokodo,” which is isiXhosa for “you strike a woman, you strike a rock.” At The Justice Desk’s Mbokodo Club, young survivors of gender-based violence between the...
Arielle Witter
Having safe and effective vaccines to fight COVID-19 within a year of the first reported cases is a historic scientific achievement. But as our animated series “Pandemica” has illustrated, unless the world prioritizes fair and equal vaccine distribution, we’re at risk of prolonging the pandemic. What happens in the next six weeks will determine the trajectory of this pandemic for the next six months. This is a critical point in the pandemic, as world leaders can either turn the...
Read more recent COVID-19 vaccine content with our Vaccine Access Test and our new series Pandemica.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unfortunate reminder that diseases don’t respect borders. The virus has swept the globe, infecting nearly 140 million people worldwide, and drastically impacting lives and livelihoods, with disproportionate impacts on people living in poverty and women and girls. In late 2020, the race to secure global vaccine access began, with hopes of finally ending the pandemic for everyone, everywhere.
At ONE,...
Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Behind the Table View police station in Milnerton, Cape Town, the Community Intervention Centre, painted a dazzling white, shines as a beacon of hope for women fleeing gender-based violence. Two women, Tam and Duduzile, sit in the welcome area. They are champions of women’s empowerment who are retelling their stories to anyone feeling trapped in the same circumstances they faced.
The mission of the Community Intervention Centre (CIC) is...
If the virus remains unchecked anywhere in the world, it will continue to breach borders, mutate, and severely impact the global economy. So how well are we doing in making sure everyone can access vaccines?
“Pandemica” is ONE’s newest animated content series about a world where the pandemic never ends — it’s a never-ending pandemic purgatory. From showcasing how vaccine hoarding will impact populations to what will happen if the COVID-19 virus continues to mutate, Pandemica sheds light on the reality that billions of people are experiencing right now as one-third of the world’s countries have yet to receive a single dose of COVID-19 vaccines, and what the entire world could experience if vaccine...
Welcome to Pandemica. It’s a never-ending pandemic purgatory, where COVID-19 never goes away, but continues to mutate and cross borders. It’s the most deadly place on earth, where twice as many people die, the global economy loses an additional US$9.2 trillion, and life as we once knew it does not return for anyone. Sound familiar?
We’re all in Pandemica. To escape, we need to act now. Having safe and effective vaccines within a year of the first reported COVID-19 cases...
The entire world is overwhelmed by a virus that has stalled economic construction efforts that have been in place for more than a century, and continues to threaten millions of jobs worldwide. In the quest for recovery, countries, and leaders have directed the efforts of the world’s laboratories to find a vaccine as quickly as possible. Scientists have taken unprecedented steps to create safe and effective vaccines and offer immunity to humanity. In this race, Africa was not outdone.
Before...
Megan Gieske is a storyteller and photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Tony Elvin, IKhaya Le Langa’s founder, sits inside the retro 1950’s style eatery, “The Sun Diner,” after Langa, which means “the sun.” It’s flanked by two repurposed shipping containers, one a bright cobalt blue. He’s nurturing a puppy that arrived at IKhaya Le Langa’s gates the day before. It’s not hard to tell that IKhaya Le Langa, in part, means “home.”
That’s what Elvin wants the IKhaya Le Langa...
March 2021 marked the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization officially declaring COVID-19 a pandemic and of pandemic-related restrictions for many places in the world. To mark the moment, we asked our supporters what ending COVID-19 looks like to them. Almost 3,000 responses later, we learned that our supporters had a lot to say, so we decided to share it with the world.
Here’s how it went.
Campaign origins
At the end of 2020, almost a full year since the first...