Welcome to the Northeast Central Durham VOICE


by Zenzele Barnes
Teen Editor-in-Chief
the Durham VOICE
thedurhamvoice@gmail.com

When I think of Durham, the first thing that comes to mind is community. Not just community in its traditional meaning but also a thriving place for intellectuals, artists, entrepreneurs, historians, and just everyday people.

Teen Editor-in-Chief Zenzele Barnes outside the VOICE newsroom at the Golden Belt Campus. (Photo by Donna Barnes)

The Northeast Central Durham VOICE is a community newspaper sharing the stories and experiences of people in the community. The journalists who write the paper hail from the journalism programs at UNC and NCCU as well as teenagers and youth in Durham.

My name is Zenzele Barnes, and I am the teen editor of the VOICE. I am 17 years old and a senior at Jordan High School. In addition to journalism, I enjoy sewing, photography, and creative writing. I love writing for the VOICE  because it lets me represent people doing extraordinary things everyday that may have been otherwise overlooked.

I also think it important to be socially aware of what’s going on wherever you live so you can get involved. Everyone has a voice and story to telL;  my job is making that story known. In a way, I am like a historian in training.

At the VOICE,  we are very fortunate to be celebrating the one-year anniversary of the print edition of the paper! Thanks to generous donations and support from people who agreed with our message and saw our vision, we have been going strong. We are all grateful and humbled to have been around for a year. We plan on continuing our community involvement and recording memories for a long time to come.