Seeing the challenges and worrying behaviour in their community a group of young people decided to speak out and get others talking.
And so, on the stoep op the AmaZink restaurant theatre in Khayamandi the Let’s Talk Podcast was born.
“On Mondays at school people were telling crazy stories about what they did over the weekend – drinking, sleeping around and fighting,” founding member Limyoli Moni (19) explained. “They didn’t even realise how destructive the decisions they make now could be for their future.”
He and the rest of the team started recording their episodes on their cellphones in 2022. Although the main focus of the programme is politics the team also discusses lifestyle issues, such as grooving culture, substance abuse and other challenges they see young people in Khayamandi indulge in. The team says although their peers haven’t quite warmed to the podcast yet, as they hope they will, their determination remains undimmed, which is to get young people in the community talking and on board.
For Inathi Ntanjana (20), recruitment officer, this means getting informed and relevant guests for their weekly Friday show. Guests have included Stellenbosch councillors Ayanda Tomose and Ronalda Nalumango as well as News24 journalist Soyiso Maliti.
“The youth at one point were angry and passionate,” Hlomala Mdala (21) pointed out. “Back in the day they were at the forefront of change in the country. But now we are free we are actually behind the leaders of the country (uncritically so).”
He added low youth-voter registration numbers and weak turnouts reflected this lack of interest in politics. With this in mind the team has created a special series focusing on the national elections, which take place on 29 May.
For Khanya Mithi (19), the only woman on the team, it is important to bring a female perspective to the discussion. She also handles the Let’s Talk social media and aims to grow the audience.
Part of growing the podcast is also getting the right infrastructure, and thanks to a sponsorship a microphone could be bought. Working on a weekly programme is also a big responsibility, especially with school and university work obligations. Moni explained various people had joined the podcast, but left again as the workload had simply been to difficult to manage.
However, the pay-off for the team includes learning skills such as video and sound editing, administrative work and marketing. In an effort to create long-term change the team also started a non-profit organisation to do more community work and wants more young people to join them.
“I think that is the biggest problem for youth in Khayamandi; we all want to fit in,” Mithi said. “We all have this perspective that we have to groove, instead of creating change; people would much rather party.”
The team believes over time more of their peers will get on board and speak out when the see wrongs. They hope to grow the Let’s Talk platform and inspire others to make long-term positive change in Khayamandi.
- Watch Let’s Talk on YouTube (www.youtube.com/@letstalk4) and visit its Facebook page, “Let’s Talk”, for more.
