HARD AT IT

We are making real progress! This last week, we have finally managed to have facilitators as studio guests on Masakhane. Zolani Zondani and Xolela Mountain were the facilitators who came to the show. Sicelo and Xoliswa were also there as usual. I think this was good because people at home did not only hear from the management or the administrators but facilitators were there as well to talk about what they do and their experiences of working with people. I think the facilitator’s perspective is very important as they are the ones who work with community members in different areas in and around Grahamstown.

Xolela, one of the facilitators, spoke about his experiences of working with people, and the challenges that facilitators face. For instance he mentioned that sometimes when they arrive at a site where they have been asked to help with the establishment of a food gardening project, there is not enough resources to work with. Resources like the gardening equipment, grass; they find that stones have not been collected and so forth.  He said they usually ask people to collect all the material that they are going to need well beforehand, to make things easy. However it becomes a problem when people have not managed to collect everything. The Umthathi facilitators are then forced to collect the resources and material for them - or, in some instances, they leave and come back when everything is ready. He emphasized that Umthathi is empowering people to do things for themselves; they just show them how and help where they can.

The facilitators also spoke about how they encourage people to engage and work with them. I think this resulted in a very informative and engaging show because I felt as if people at home are being directly addressed and that they are also involved. Those of them who have taken part in one of these uMthathi gatherings could relate to what the facilitators were saying. Yes, each and every week we had different topics being discussed in the show but I think this one was the most important because it was about the facilitators’ contributions. How they are contributing to the development and improvement of people’s lives in general. This has always been our plan; to have facilitators in the studio and a person from the community; a person who has benefited or who has learnt a lot from the project. For now we have managed to have facilitators but the show still lacks community voices.

We did not get callers this week but maybe this is due to the fact that the Friday of the show was a public holiday. Therefore due to the public holiday maybe people were too busy to call or they were celebrating the holiday and did not listen to the radio. I personally think that bringing the facilitators back would be a good idea. These are the people who work very closely with the community; they therefore know the advantages, challenges and benefits of Umthathi’s work first hand. They see people’s reaction every now and then; they are therefore the right people to talk to.  Which is why I think it is always important to hear from them.

The show also included a feature about uMthathi’s upcoming events. Here Xoliswa gave detailed information about where listeners can interact with them, how they can enter competitions and so forth. I think the competitions and the activities give this project color. It made for interesting listening, which may in turn encourage Radio Grahamstown audience to contribute actively to the show. This could even be a regular feature on the show, where listeners call and ask questions or comment on the show; where callers stand a chance to win in one of uMthathi competitions.

I am also happy to report that Chris, Alex and I have managed to put together the jingle and the sting for the Masakhane feature. These were played on Friday’s broadcast. This was one of our goals for this term; we wanted to create an identity for the Masakhane. We kicked this process off last term with the creation of the running order for the show (this is still work in progress as we are still trying to open spots for other features as well, like the above mentioned) and now we have the jingle and the sting.

We have also managed to ask Xoliswa to say something about the show and give people information about uMthathi and the Masakhane feature.  We (students) then recorded this and we are going to use it for the PSA and the advert that we are busy putting together. By next week we will also have the poster ready. I think the poster idea is important because we have to market the show, in order to build an audience. Xoliswa has also asked us to do pamphlets as she thinks they are a good form of advertising. We are still going to talk about this on our regular meetings on Tuesday. As Henry Ford nicely puts it; “coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”.