Voxpop Africa

Podcast: Ndumiso Ngcobo on National Identity

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:41:43 +0200

We have been recently working on few ideas that focus on identity on an individual and national level. We have thought about questions like what does it consist of and how could it be strengthened. Is there even a national identity in South Africa and if there is or at least could be, what would it be like.

We talked with one of our favourite authors Ndumiso Ngcobo (Some of My Best Friends Are White & Is It Coz I’m Black?) and he shared his views:

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Link: Read Ndumiso Ngcobo’s Blog at Thought Leader (Mail & Guardian)

Podcast - Sihle Khumalo on his book "Dark Continent My Black Arse"

Thu, 21 May 2009 09:59:00 +0200

Sihle Khumalo

Sihle Khumalo talks about his book Dark Continent My Black Arse.

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African Clans - a photo shoot with Gaba.

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:11:00 +0200

While shooting a portrait for Masixole Nkumbesi we talked about the signifigance of the Clan names for him and their relevance in today’s world.

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Masixole talks about his family and and the Gaba clan

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Masixole getting ready for the photo shoot by the river

Youth Forum at Artscape

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:06:00 +0200

Marlene Le Roux, Director of Audience Development & Education at the Artscape is addressing the participants.

We started this week with a Youth Seminar at the Artscape. One often notices obstacles on the communication lines between the grassroots and decision makers, and when it comes to youth issues this definitely is the case. Every generation of young people grow up with different circumstances, value systems, media influences and general zeitgeist, should I use such a word, and every previous generation is trying to understand them through the circumstances they grew up with. I guess if that is the case it is no wonder that we always venture out complaining about the youth of today. But admittedly sounding like a cliché or 80’s pop song, youth and children are the future. They are the leaders and decision makers of tomorrow and Youth Forum gave hope as many, I suppose mainly volunteers, talked and gave their views of the challenges in schools and communities and took responsibility to do what they can for the betterment of these circumstances. This, of course is something they have been doing already for long regardless of how thankless the job sometimes may seem.

Unfortunately we could not stick around for every session, but it was extremely educational and we recorded very interesting commentaries and interviews that we are looking forward using in our projects in future.

Audience member raising questions to the speakers.

Voxpop Africa’s Amkelwa interviewing Eric from KYDC, Khayelitsha.

Mr Michael Maas, Chief Executive at the Artscape.

Beyond Xenophobia to be broadcasted on SAfm

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:35:00 +0200

We are so happy and proud to announce that our documentary Beyond Xenophobia will be broadcasted on SAfm. We believe that it couldn’t have found a better home as we hold the station in high regard.

SAfm plays documentaries on Sundays, however the exact date for Beyond Xenophobia hasn’t yet been confirmed. We’ll let you know as soon as we know.

You can visit the SAfm website from here.

Women of Africa Conference

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:28:00 +0200

It’s August again and women’s month. We took our recording equipment to the UCT GSB (Graduate School of Business) where Women of Africa conference was taking place. The theme was Power in Unity, and the reason we got interested was the impressive line-up of speakers. Dr Mamphela Ramphele, who we regard so highly, was giving the keynote speech and she was followed by South African business women with their stories.

We recorded some of the speeches and are working currently with the material, but we also sourced some very nice contacts for future interviews and a documentary series we are planning right now. More about that in the near future. Also, the audio will be put online at this site soon.

Happy Women’s Month!

Interview with Responsibility Coach Karina Andreson

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:59:00 +0200

Karina Anderson is a responsibility coach, who has written a book called, The responsible Individual. This book is in a form of a manual that can be used by individuals, families, teams and companies. It can be used individually or with the help of a life coach. Karina, is part of a group of responsibility coaches who coach at the Bramvlei maximum prison to the inmates as well as some of the wardens.

The Responsible Individual was launched at the Cape Town Book Fair at the CTICC where Voxpop Africa media had an opportunity to listen to her presentation as well as do a brief interview with her.

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Beyond Xenophobia Trailer

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:43:00 +0200

We uploaded a trailer of our documentary Beyond Xenophobia online. Have a listen to get some idea of what we are talking about. For more information scroll down to our previous post and you can also contact us about it by mailing info@voxpopafrica.com with comments or questions.

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Beyond Xenophobia

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:14:00 +0200

Our documentary Beyond Xenophobia is done. We reckon it’s brilliant. In it, we suggest, or rather the interviewees do, that xenophobia is not necessarily the root cause of the recent attacks. It’s rather a symptom for other issues within the society. Issues like unemployment, poverty and even trauma of the past.

We managed to get an all-star cast to be interviewed. George Bizos, the lawyer extraordinaire who has defended so many heroes that it makes him one, and Dr Mamphela Ramphele, activist, academic and co-founder of BCM (Black Consciousness Movement) amongst others talk about the problems and solutions. We also have the new wave South African writers Niq Mhlongo, Sihle Khumalo, Thembelani Ngenelwa and Ndumiso Ncgobo giving their commentary, as well as many affected people from various African countries, and local community activists.

Beyond Xenophobia is a thought provoking documentary which hopefully encourages open debate and inspires action.

For more information about it, contact us via email: info@voxpopafrica.com or find the other means from our contact site.

One of the interviewees Lindelwa ‘Mamtshawe’ Rosslyn Thole giving her views during the anti-xenophobia demonstration June 2nd in Cape Town.

Book Fair 2008 ends

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:02:00 +0200

I lack some very basic qualities of a journalist. Not that I am not cynical enough, but at times I can also get excited. I don’t feel the need to criticise what doesn’t need criticising. I am openly out of the closet fan of certain things. I don’t think that makes me less objective when I talk and write about them; after all, I like them because I like them. There’s no particular unconditional love in these fan relationships.

As a journalist and as a fan the past few days have been exciting because I think, as sincerely as I only can, that South Africa is living very interesting times literature wise. The new wave of Black, often a-political, witty, intelligent and engaging opinion leaders and writers has arrived in a big style and I have had a chance to chat and meet with almost every one that I have enjoyed reading. Granted there must be others that I didn’t get to meet and whose books I haven’t read, but it’s been a privilege nonetheless.

Like the previous post was already plugging, the last one of these new guys was Ndumiso Ngcobo. The author of Some of my Best Friends are White chatted with us after his presentation at the publisher’s stand. He’s pretty cool; a bit of an anecdotalist and observer. He also blogs and based on the book, blog, presentation and our interview, he’s a kind of person that one would like to have as an in-house opinion machine. To sort of comment every story, and hey, since both in his book and presentation he mentioned an arrangement similar to this being his dream, if only we had the funding to hire him, we probably would.

Tuesday is the last day of the book fair. We’ll still go there to record bits and pieces before we put everything finally together. It’s been busy but wonderful few days. It’s great time to live in South Africa. It may not be a perfect country, but having lived in a handful of countries, what is.