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Author Biography: Jessica McDiarmid

Jessica McDiarmid graduated from the University of King's College in 2007. Prior to joining jhr, she worked in various news outlets, including the Hamilton Spectator and the Canadian Press. She has also had numerous other occupations, including waitress, aquarist, receptionist and kindergarten classroom assistant. She is stationed in Accra, Ghana.

Freetown workers protest after six months without salaries

In Sierra Leone,
by Jessica McDiarmid January 27, 2012

Story by: Jessica McDiarmid & Poindexter Sama Annie Kargbo has spent the last 18 years sweeping the streets of Freetown, earning up to 100,000 Leones (about $22) per month. She used that to buy items to sell, which made her a little more money; enough, at least, to keep her grandson in school and some [...]

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The Street Boys of Freetown

In Uncategorized,
by Jessica McDiarmid January 9, 2012

They sleep under the wharf that reaches out over the Atlantic Ocean or beneath the rickety market stalls in the city centre. At night, on Rawdon Street in a district called “PZ”, rows of coughing bodies plaster the uneven stoops. There are an estimated 2,000 boys living on the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital [...]

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Fighting for survival: Liberia’s ex-combatants in Cote d’Ivoire

In Liberia,
by Jessica McDiarmid January 26, 2011
Thumbnail image for Fighting for survival: Liberia’s ex-combatants in Cote d’Ivoire

Once, Gabriel Swen was a regional warrior. He fought in his country, Liberia, for years, first picking up a gun at the age of 7 after losing his family in the West African nation’s 14-year civil war. He handed in his weapons to the UN in 1997 in exchange for some training in shoe repair, [...]

Tagged as: civil war, ex-combatants, Liberia

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On the road in Sierra Leone

In Ghana, IYIP Rights Media Internships,
by Jessica McDiarmid December 22, 2010
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The sky was just beginning to lighten as the roar of a motorcycle drew near. Moments later, there was a light tap at the door. “He’s here,” said the young man who runs a guesthouse in the diamond-studded eastern Sierra Leonean town of Kenema. Out on the street, motorcycle driver Abraham Bungara balanced my bag [...]

Tagged as: bribery, Travel

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Between Heaven and Hell

In IYIP Rights Media Internships, Liberia,
by Jessica McDiarmid October 15, 2010

A young man wearing camouflage shorts lowers his sunglasses down over his eyes from their perch atop unkempt braids, eyeing me up and down as I stand in a throng of young men on the outskirts of Monrovia. “Welcome to hell,” he says. Then he melts back into the crowd of mainly ex-combatants eager to [...]

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Buses and Bushes: a Journey from Kumasi to Accra

In Ghana, IYIP Rights Media Internships,
by Jessica McDiarmid October 8, 2010

It was just after 6 p.m. when I arrived at the station. The sun was sinking in the sky as I lugged my bag across the dusty lot in Kumasi, in Ghana’s Ashanti region, where buses leave for the capital, Accra. “Craw, craw, craw, ten cedi,” I heard over the din, which means “Accra” in [...]

Tagged as: Accra, Kumasi, Travel

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Poverty under a gold mine

In Ghana, IYIP Rights Media Internships,
by Jessica McDiarmid September 27, 2010

“You are now encroaching,” says Eric Adjei. “Eh?” I say. “On what?” We were walking down a road in Obuasi, a mining town of about 250,000 in Ghana’s Ashanti Region, before hopping a gutter and starting up a well-trodden trail under a canopy of palm trees. “On their land,” says Adjei, a Ghanaian journalist-turned-mining activist. [...]

Tagged as: Mining; human rights; Ghana; Ashanti Region;

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Holding a City Ransom

In Ghana, IYIP Rights Media Internships,
by Jessica McDiarmid September 7, 2010

The villagers don’t want to talk to Ghanaian journalists. “Africans, Ghanaians, no!” said Abu Smith, shaking his head in disgust and setting off again across the side of a long, lush valley. “They don’t care, they don’t do anything,” I hear him saying, the words drifting back as he races down the road that leads [...]

Tagged as: Accra, garbage; sanitation; World Bank; land rights, Ghana

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‘This is Africa:’ Fighting Corrupt Journalism

In Ghana, IYIP Rights Media Internships,
by Jessica McDiarmid August 26, 2010

“Journalism is in profound crisis.” A pall hung in the air over the Ghana Journalists Association’s annual awards night on August 21 as the first speaker of the night delivered a stern address that both vaunted the lofty heights to which journalists should aspire, and damned the unethical, corrupt practices that are driving the profession [...]

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Smoke and Culture Shock on the Side of the Road

In Ghana, IYIP Rights Media Internships,
by Jessica McDiarmid August 19, 2010

These are some definitions of culture shock: Culture shock refers to the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, disorientation, uncertainty, confusing, etc.) felt when people have to operate within a different and unknown culture such as one may encounter in a foreign country. Culture Shock is an American travel show hosted by Shenax Treasurywala on the [...]

Tagged as: Accra, culture, Ghana

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