Category: this is south africa

Important Youth issues tackled

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With yesterday being Youth Day here in South Africa, youths have been very much in the news. It’s only right that the Youth should have their own day when one looks at the sacrifices made in Soweto in 1976. And the Youth of today still face a huge number of challenges, so what better plan than to focus on these issues on June 16th each year? Step forward then, Simon Molefe: Gauteng Chairperson of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), who called on Provinical Premier Nomvula Mokonyane to address the most pressing of problems facing the Youth of today: unemployment, crime, lack of education and educational opportunities and HIV/Aids. Well, no, actually, first of all he had a bit of a pop at taxi drivers who play loud music in their vehicles:

The agency’s Gauteng chairperson, Simon Molefe, called on Premier Nomvula Mokonyane to deal with the issue of taxis playing loud music before next year’s Youth Day because of the negative impact some of the music played in taxis has on the youth. Speaking at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto, Molefe said, “This thing of taxis transporting students from Soweto playing “Imoto entshontshimali” (“The car that steals money”) loudly must be history. The driver of any taxi playing music while taking pupils to school must be arrested.”

OK, but then he called on Provinical Premier Nomvula Mokonyane to address the most pressing of problems facing the Youth of today: unemployment, crime, lack of education and educational opportunities and HIV/Aids. Right? Wrong. Then he got annoyed about churches only being used 14.29% of the time:

Molefe called on communities, especially the youth, to create partnerships with faith-based organisations. “For six days a week the churches are empty. Each church space must be a youth centre focusing on technology and science skills,” he said.

Where’s the Women’s Institute supposed to meet on Thursday mornings now, then? Honestly, sports stadiums are empty most of the time too: must we set up art colleges in them? The Karoo is empty – really empty – all of the time: must we explore for shale gas deposits there? And what are we going to do with all the free space between Simon Molefe’s ears?

Heart v Head

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I desperately want(ed) to get down to the coast this weekend. The weather this week has been atrocious (once we’d got past Tuesday with its ridiculous midwinter 30 degreedness) and the wind has whipped up some epic swells around the South African coast. The weather service were warning of 7m off Agulhas. Yummy.

I love that kind of weather. It’s dramatic, elemental, Wuthering Heights kind of stuff. I would much rather wander along a beach in a gale, with crashing surf and disturbed seabirds than sit there in the baking sun, baking.
There are other considerations though. Family, for one, two and three. Coming from South Africa, rather than the UK, they are not so keen on the epic waves and howling wind. They want sunshine and warmth. They like to be able to see the sand to sit on and to dig in, rather than have it littered in smashed weed and marooned jellyfish. Suffice to say, their preferred conditions are not going to be much in evidence this weekend. And there’s more to do with two small kids in Cape Town than in a tiny village miles from anything except a windy beach and a wild sea.

Add to that the frankly rather scary conditions forecast for the Cape on Sunday – if you thought last night’s ice storm was bad, just wait – which is when we’d be doing the 230km back and it’s sadly a no-brainer. Or rather an all-brainer and a no-hearter. Not that I struggle to drive safely in storm force winds and heavy rain, but unfortunately, it has come to my attention that a lot of other people in this country do.

So I’ll be around this weekend, I think. Which makes it all the more important for you to take the few seconds required to ‘like’ the new 6000.co.za facebook page, download the 6000 miles… feed Android app or even the one for your Nokia Ovi, thanks to Nokia SA and #mobiblog.
And – big news – the 6000 miles… iPhone app is under development and should be with you shortly. Possibly even more shortly now that I’m going to be around some internet for the next few days.

So many ways to stay in touch. No excuses anymore.

Numb

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From the sublime to the ridiculous. Considering we’re approaching midwinter, Cape Town’s Tuesday started so beautifully this morning. I was compelled to pull over on Rhodes Avenue and point my phone at the sun.
Now, 14 hours later, winter has returned and I find myself hiding under the duvet wondering if my roof will survive the night in this unnecessarily aggressive northwester.

While I was leaning out of my window during more peaceful times, this was playing:

It’s my favourite tune of the moment. A bit of The Killers, some MGMT, a heavy dose of the 1980s and a silly name thrown in. I will certainly be heading for the local record shop to search out their latest LP, All At Once.

Shaik: In of uit?

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Incoming from bizcommunity.com:

Draftfcb Cape Town ‘Shaiks’ things up in the Mother City with this proactive piece it recently developed for Die Burger to emphasise the newspaper’s pay-off line, ‘Praat Saam’, which loosely translates as ‘join the conversation’.

Posters of convicted fraudster, Schabir Shaik, who has been in and out of jail a number of times, were placed behind and in front of railings around Cape Town. The headline asks: ‘In or Out?’

Here’s the piece in question, doing its thing:

Provocatively proactive indeed. And popular too, apparently:

“This tongue-in-cheek way of drawing attention to Shaik’s prison antics – he’s been incarcerated, released on medical parole, rearrested for assault and released again – has been loved by the people of Cape Town,” said one of the Creative Directors on the piece, Aaron Harris. “There’s been a lot of hooting and laughing as people pass the strategically placed ads.”

But look out – there’s some ad-speak coming:

“At the same time, however, the treatment challenges readers to form their own opinion, backed by the insights they have gleaned from Die Burger’s superior quality journalism. So, does he deserve special treatment? Was he framed? As Cape Town’s ‘information partner’, Die Burger is a reliable source of honest and unbiased fact, giving its readers’ the input they need to decide for themselves.”

I don’t think there will be too many people who will disagree with me if I stick my neck out here and suggest that the readers of Die Burger might well have formed their own opinion long before they glean any insights from the superior quality journalism therein. However, who am I to doubt someone the words of an individual who can create something as challenging as this treatment (“treatment”? -Ed) and is probably a thoroughly nice bloke?

I therefore plan to take my Google Translate in hand and do a quick overview of the honest and unbiased fact which Die Burger has given us on the Schabir Schaik saga. Once I’ve done that, I’ll report back (think Kwa-Zulu Natal Correction Services Medical Parole Appeals Board timescale).

Heads up!

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No big announcement, as you may have expected from the title of this post, merely this from the very same weekend a year ago.

That’s France’s Jeremy Toulalan and Uruguay’s Alvaro Pereira challenging for a ball which I comprehensively failed to get in shot. This was the second game of the tournament after the Bafana Bafana v Mexico game which we watched with a couple of hundred thousand others at the Waterfront. This one ended 0-0, meaning that I had watched a total of 3½ hours of football at the Cape Town Stadium without seeing a goal.

Fortunately, 39 minutes into the next game in Cape Town (a bitterly cold affair between Italy and Paraguay), Antolín Alcaraz scored for the South Americans and the duck was broken, only to return for the utterly dismal England v Algeria game a few days later.

Expect more quota photos loosely tied around a World Cup 2010 theme this month and every other June for ever and ever.