Westchester Community College hosts Pulitzer Center Reporters - Meet the Pros

  Allison Shelley and Melissa Turley visited Westchester Community College on April 25^th as part of a “Meet the Pros” event in part of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.  Both of the speakers focused their reporting on women and children issues in foreign countries. 

Melissa Turley South Africa, 2012

Melissa Turley is a student at George Washington University.  She was chosen as the student fellow for the Pulitzer Center program and focused on women’s rights in South Africa.  During her time there, Melissa traveled to remote areas of Southern Africa where the electricity was rare, some towns would steal electricity from poles that would often cause damaging fires.  As Melissa began her research and investigating and the women began to speak openly, she learned that they felt extremely unsafe and acts of rape and murder were common against lesbians.  The culture in South Africa is generally male dominated, the women are expected to be obedient to their husbands and any woman that was lesbian could be “cured” my rape.  Crimes of rape almost always go unreported and no justice is sought for the countless victims.  AIDS and HIV statistics are the highest in South Africa, and a lot of those numbers are a result from these unspeakable rapes taking place daily in a lot of these communities.  Melissa did a fantastic job in her reporting on this under-reported topic as well as providing suggesting as to what specifically can be done to help the women in this area of the world who are not equal and who are fighting daily for basic rights and safety. 

Allison Shelley, Nepal 2012

Allison Shelley was the second speaker in this event, she is an independent photographer or photojournalist, who travels around the world with other journalists, to similarly, discover and report on under-reported issues around the world.  After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Allison stayed in that country for a year and a half to cover Haiti and its culture. She has also traveled to Northern India and areas of Nepal where she discovered several issues.  Eight to twelve year old girls are being forced to get married in Northern India, a lot of them are also becoming pregnant due to rapes and as a result of becoming pregnant, these girls are exiled from their families forced to provide for a child all by themselves.  An interesting topic Shelley shared was on a practice called “Chaupadi” in western Nepal where women are basically sent to live in a shed, often amongst animals, while they are menstruating.

Westchester Community College is the first Community College to participate in the Pulitzer Center fellowship program and Devon Williams is the first student from our Community College to be given the grant.  She will be traveling to Ireland this summer and cover the civil war that has been taking place and the effects its had on the youth culture.