Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
RY

Creator

Ryan Lenora Brown

Ryan Lenora Brown is a freelancer reporter and an Africa correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, based in Johannesburg.

Nothando Nyathi makes a cake at her home in Thulani, Soweto. She taught herself how to bake and decorate cakes and runs a small business called ‘Extraordinary Cakes’. Photographer: James Puttick.

The cakes that dreams are baked of

Nothando Nyathi always associated baking with happiness and she knew that her creations would bring joy to many others, including her son

Making waves: Women on Web offers an online portal that dispatches an abortion pill to people across the world.

‘I told them I had a miscarriage. But the nurses knew what had really happened’

Go inside the international network of women willing to break the law to give people access to termination of pregnancy services.

Jacob Zuma at the ANC NGC in October.

Meet the doctors: Take a look at this country’s first crop of homegrown physicians

Finally capping its own medics, the country must now retain them and coax them into rural areas.

During the Ebola outbreak hospitals were seen as dumping grounds for the dying

Africa’s oldest psychiatric hospital a stark reminder of war and a forgotten people

After Sierra Leone’s civil war, money poured in for mental health services. But a decade later, there’s little left to help Ebola’s victims.

The textile industry is one of the important in South Africa. It employs around 80 000 people and provides important exports, but textile pollution is a serious problem

​The textile industry needs to be sewn into the fabric of Lesotho’s economy

The mountain kingdom needs to cut its dependence on the United States’ Agoa trade deal.

Privileged: Cyclist Jeanne d’Arc Girubuntu

Rwanda: Raised in the shadow of death

Twenty-one years after the genocide, Rwanda is rapidly rebuilding its national identity – but ethnicity is still a factor.

Soon to be a saint: Staunch Catholic Benedict Daswa was killed by a mob of community members on a rural road in the Thohoyandou area.

A reminder that saints walk among us

Twenty-five years ago in Venda, a man died for his beliefs at the hands of a vicious mob. Now he is poised to become South Africa’s first saint.

Alex Hoek says everything appears normal to his son Quentin

Transracial adoption: Loving gift or theft of culture?

Social workers prefer to avoid transracial adoptions, but supply and demand often override this sentiment when it comes to potential parents.