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Eddie Botha
Investigations Editor
Daily Dispatch
Eastern Cape, South Africa

Topic: Investigate the role of traditional healers in the treatment of people with mental illnesses.

Projects:

By Gum, It Can Weave a Deceitful Web
Old timers, such as me, still believe we should look each other in the eye when doing business. This is not the way the wide world of the web operates. Banking, travel bookings, tax returns … everything can be done from the keyboard of your laptop.

Traditional Healing has Role
Traditional healers hold an esteemed and powerful position in southern African societies. Writing in the SA Pharmaceutical Journal in 2007, Ilze Truter of the Drug Utilisation Research Unit at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, concluded that their role was that of a physician, counsellor, psychiatrist and priest.

The Healing Spirit of 'Igqira'
Newspaper headlines told the story: Fatal concoction kills a family of four. It related how 13 family members from Port Shepstone died last year after they had allegedly taken a concoction which one family member, a trainee traditional healer, had given them.