The Gugulethu Jazz Festival 2013 has been cancelled amidst frustration from members of the public who bought tickets and no official word from the event organisers.
One of the Bush Radio presenters, Sive Msolo who was at the venue where the festival is supposed to take place said he was told by Platmedia management that they are experiencing problems with sound equipment are the venue. They would only know within two hours if the event would go ahead or not. This was at 5pm and the event was scheduled to start at 10am.
The unnamed Platmedia Management official also said that they are not aware of artists pulling out of the event as speculated by the media in the last week. Artists, like Zahara, Thandiswa Mazwai and Simphiwe Dana who names where on the bill organised by Platmedia Management said on the social media network, twitter that they were not performing or had not be paid to perform at the event.Bush Radio was a media sponsor for the festival and according to the station’s Managing Director Brenda Leonard they were approached to do a competition, giving away tickets and give some airtime to promote the artists.
“We are not the organisers of the concert. The organisers are PLATMEDIA Group (Pty) Ltd and people who paid for tickets should contact them.
We would like to apologise to our listeners that won tickets via the competition we ran, and by wasting their time by going to an unorganised festival,” Leonard added.
The station tried several times to contact Platmedia group, Managing Director, Shaun Sishuba for comment by as yet he has not returned the station’s calls.
Bush Radio 89.5 FM will be providing coverage of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to various radio stations and other media organisations in South Africa and around the world for the duration of the conference (28 November – 9 December 2011) in Durban.
You will be able to access updates, audio, video and pictures via the Bushradionews platform or by following us on Twitter and searching here #COP17.
For the past three months, we have been running our climate change – COP17 campaign, which consists of community dialogues, training for broadcasters and running a news desk during COP17.
In the past two weeks (7 – 18 November) our offices have reverberated with the words COP17 and climate change – training and equipping broadcasters to demystify the issues of climate change and COP17, and enabling them to engage in debates at their stations.
Participants getting to grips with the issues
Bush Radio, in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, developed a training course which brought together radio journalists from throughout South Africa. With the training, the broadcasters will be able to highlight the issues of climate change and translate these issues to their various communities in a clear and efficient way. In order to acheive this, briefings were held with various stakeholders in the area of climate change – these included the public, scientists, activists, civil society, politicians, international broadcasters and the United Nations. The course also upgraded their production and journalism skills.
The BBC's Steve Martin engaging the group on the importance of community media
What some of the participants felt about the training:
“The workshop has opened my mind by giving me a better understanding of climate change and COP17. I feel like a new encyclopaedia filled with more knowledge than Google”. – Tashneem Abrahams – VOC
Team building through dance
“The two weeks of being in Cape Town has really flown by quickly. The staff at Bush Radio has been very friendly, but most of all, the entire workshop has been great and the facilitator was great too. Thank you so much to everyone who has made this possible.” –Xolelwa Mvumvu – Motheo FM
“Having been part of this 2 weeks climate change workshop has been a great experience. Meeting up with journalists from other provinces and having fun while learning was definitely the cherry on top.” – Bongani Gina – uMgungundlovu Community Radio KZN
A big thank you to all the participants and facilitators of the Media Kidocracy Konference 2010 (17 – 18 December 2010) who helped make the conference a huge success.
A special word of thanks to the following individuals who gave their time and resources to participate and facilitate the discussions with the participants:
Bush Radio, Africa’s oldest community radio station project will once again host the annual Media Kidocracy Konfrence (MKK) now in its 11th year from the 17th to the 18th December 2010 at its premises in Salt River, Cape Town.
This year the Bush Radio’s children and youth project CREW (Children’s Radio Education Workshop), which takes on the role of host and planning committee for the conference, is presenting a programme called Youth Engagement.
The delegates, aged between 12 and 18 years of age, will explore issues that are pertinent to themselves and their peers under the theme, and have broken the conference into three parallel areas: Business, Music and Media.
Business
This session aims to inspire youth as well as teach them ways of capitalising on their talents and how to be responsible in business.
Music:
Exploring how the youth express themselves in a positive way through music and to help with discovering our rich musical heritage. These sessions will look at independent and signed artists, their experiences and challenges.
Media
Not just the glitz and glam. The sessions will reflect on how all media influences youth, how children and young people are represented in the media and how they wish to be represented. The impact of new media and ideas on how to use it will also be shared.
Former Bush Radio MD, Zane Ibrahim at an early MKK conference
“Whereas previous MKK sessions have concentrated on media and media production, we have noted with interest that this years’ MKK planning committee have included a section on business,” Bush Radio Managing Director Brenda Leonard.
“We feel it shows the impact of the economic crisis on the lives of the youth. They motivated strongly for this section to be included. It is our job of facilitators of young people’s development that we hear their call.”
Background on MKK
As part of a growing need for youth participation in the decision-making process and policy formulation around children’s broadcasting, in 2000 Bush Radio initiated a conference. The Kidocracy (Kid-democracy) name was created for the event – to denote a form of society characterised by social equality and acceptance of young people with representation for and by young people.
The Media Kidocracy Konference aims to establish critical awareness and understanding among young people by exposing youth to information and experiences that will enable them to identify issues they feel are relevant, as well as explore their role in media and social issues. MKK also assists participants in devising strategies for addressing social issues by using the media as a tool to help resolve and address these issues.
This Saturday the 16 January 2010 , from 10h00 – 12h00, the Bush Radio 89.5 FM team will be broadcasting from our listener Cassiem “Die Bossie” Jumat’s house in Heideveld on the Cape Flats.
"Die Bossie" (centre) with Victor and Shiraaz at the site check for OB from his house
Cassiem who is better known to Bush Radio listeners as “Die Bossie” is a regular on the Breakfast Show and often participates in Bush Radio activities, he also helps to improve his community by raising funds and donations to schools and feeding schemes etc.
To show our appreciation we will broadcast from his home, with members of the Heideveld community. We will be discussing and highlighting issues in the community and having loads of fun!
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Bushradio 89.5 FM 