2000 killed in 6 months #crime #gbv #xenophobia #peacebuilding – what can we do?

Join us on Thursday, 12 September at 12pm on Sakhisizwe – Building the Nation – Bou die Nasie on Bush Radio 89.5FM / http://www.bushradio.co.za for a discussion with experts and community workers.

Be heard – SMS 32158 and Whatsapp 0618621065 now, or call the studio on 0214486266 on Thursday after 12pm.

Forty-seven people killed in one weekend. Two thousand people killed in the first half of this year.

These were just some of the statistics going around when the army was called in to help end gang violence on the Cape Flats.

Now they’re getting ready to leave, and it’s hard to measure how it helped.
Police Minister Bheki Cele says more than a thousand arrests, the Western Cape govt – using the mortuaries – says fewer people were killed, and the army calls the situation stable.

But how do we tackle decades of violence and its aftermath in three months?

It is time for long-term solutions for communities named as the most dangerous… Bishop Lavis, Mitchells Plain, Delft, Elsies River, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Mfuleni, Philippi, Kraaifontein and Manenberg.

allAfrica.com and Bush Radio want to know what the next steps are, how to build the peace that we need in our communities, especially as the impact of gang violence, and the raw emotions around violence against women and xenophobic attacks are sweeping South Africa.

Support the Bush Radio pledge drive

The Actor, the Canadian and the journalist

This past week at Bush Radio was filled with several reunions at the station.

On Tuesday well-known stage and television actor Vinette Ebrahim popped into the station to talk to Denisia Adams about her current play “My Naam is Ellen Pakkies“, which is on at the Baxter Theatre.

Vinette Ebrahim and Denisia Adams

Vinette is most popular for her role in the soap opera 7de Laan, but we at Bush Radio remember her as the narrator of a series of
programmes we produced in 1998 with Molo Songololo, the national children’s rights network, called Silent Shame, Silent Crime which dealt with incest.

We pulled a recording from our archives and played it for her. Click here to listen

John Tottenham, Wesley Wessels (centre) and Janelle Nichols

We then had another visit from someone who was last at Bush Radio in 2004. John Tottenham was a participant in a programme run at the station with a group called Canada World Youth. John was a student at the University of Waterloo at that time and during the project he was teamed up with former Bush Radio trainee and now editor of The Dankish, Wesley Wessels, who also came along for the visit.

John is currently working for an engineering company in Canada and came to show his wife, Janelle, South Africa.

Rhode (6th from left) with some of the Bush Team

Also this week, former trainee producer and newsroom intern Rhode Marshall, now a content producer for the Mail and Guardian, came to say hi.