The Radio Workshop:
Giving Young People a Voice

“I’ve learned that so often in our communities we don’t realise the things that are happening, or if we know, we don’t take interest… I’ve learned that ordinary people can take extraordinary steps.”

These are the words of Richmond Sajini from Alexander Bay High School in the Northern Cape when describing his oral history project about the forced removals and successful land claim brought by people in his community of the Richtersveld.

YOUNG HISTORIANS: Refiloe Tsumane and Richmond Sajini at the awards luncheon.

The story of the Richtersveld land claim is indeed an extraordinary one – as community leaders took on the state and mining interests to win back their land. The Richtersveld is a rugged area on South Africa’s west coast, which combines harsh beauty with diamond-rich terrain. The land claim settlement, lodged in 1998, demanded the right to return to the area from which the community had been forcibly removed, as well as compensation for diamonds extracted from it since the 1920s. The claim was finally awarded in 2007.

Richard Sajini’s interviews with community leaders who led this struggle, and his research into this comparatively recent historical event, were rewarded when he was selected as one 90 finalists in the annual Nkosi Albert Luthuli Young Historians’ Award run by the South African education department.

The finals of the awards took place in Cape Town where high school students from each of the country’s nine provinces presented their projects. It was clear for many of the participants one of the most exciting aspects of their projects was the thrill of discovering untold stories and hearing about history from people who had lived through it.

Refiloe Tsumane is a Grade 11 learner from Kuruman who chose to research “unsung heroes” in her community. She interviewed a group of gravediggers who work for no charge to prepare graves at the local cemetery every weekend.

“I wanted people to know that not only do they prepare our last place of rest, but they’re not honoured in the way they should be… Without a gravedigger there is no funeral,” she said.

Studying history and researching oral histories have opened Refiloe’s eyes to people and circumstances around her. Her energy and enthusiasm for the subject are palpable.

These research, interviewing AND listening skills needed for this kind of work are similar to the skills that the Radio Workshop includes in its radio training for young people. The annual oral history awards offer the potential for an exciting and productive partnership between the Radio Workshop and the Race and Values in Education directorate of the national education department which sponsors the awards.

The creation of the young historian’s award is but one of many ways in which the teaching of history is being transformed in South African schools.

History is always contested, but in a country where fear and misinformation were used for so long to divide and rule us, it is especially important that young people learn about how history is made.

Critical thinking skills are now an integral part of the new history curriculum.  How “the facts” may vary, depending on who is documenting them, how oral testimony may vary – not only because memories fade – but depending on who is speaking, where they were at the time, what their allegiances were and what version of history they were taught.

Perhaps the greatest myth, with the most pernicious of consequences, is the myth of different races. This myth, which underpinned apartheid ideology, took legal form in 1950 when the Population Registration Act was passed, labelling each South African, according to their appearance and social acceptance, into four broad groups. It was not until 1991 that the law was repealed, but its devastating imprint continues as, all too often, we continue to distinguish between each other based on this false notion of “race”.

It was through her research about Khoisan X, a leader in her community, that Gabriella Bailie, a Grade 11 learner from Gauteng province, discovered other voices that challenged the apartheid categories. Gabriella concluded her presentation with the words of Robert Sobukwe, a giant within the Pan Africanist Congress, reminding her fellow historians that biologically we are all of one race, the human race.

You can listen here to a report of the 2008 awards. Duration 9 minutes.

The terror of exams rules many children’s lives, especially at this time of year as the 2008 school calendar draws to a close.  For 17-year old Daniella de Wee of the small Western Cape town of De Doorns [the thorns] it was to prove fatal.

It started last Tuesday as a black south-easter covered Table Mountain in a thick dark cloud and whipped through the peninsula. Unlike the “Cape Doctor” as the familiar south-easter which blows during the dry summer months is known, the black south-easter combines both wind and rain. Soon the rains spread inland. Rivers came down in flood, six of the seven bridges in the Hex River Valley washed away and the Breede River reached its highest level in a 100 years.

De Doorns is the heart of the Hex River Valley faming community – an area rich with fruit farms and vineyards that account for more than half the country’s export grape crop.

A little more than two months ago, Daniella de Wee attended her matric farewell [the equivalent of the US high school prom] in a golden brown dress. As any South African learner will tell you, the matric exam is the all-important test that will determine one’s options after leaving school. The exams are standardised across the country for all Grade 12 students, and missing any one of them without a valid excuse has grave consequences.

Last Wednesday it was the Afrikaans exam, Daniella de Wee’s home language, and she headed out into the rain. The bridge she usually walked over to get to Hexvallei Secondary School was underwater and her father helped her as they made their way across. But the flood waters surged, tore her them apart and carried her away. A week later, police divers are still looking for her body.

News reports say that more than 36 matriculants were unable to reach their schools and missed their exams last week. In Touws River, which was split down the middle by the flooded Donkies River, rescue personnel transported exam papers by boat to students and alternative venues were hastily organised.

In January 1981 when black south-easter conditions caused similar floods at Laingsburg on the banks of the Buffels River on the edge of the semi-arid Karoo, 104 people lost their lives.  In 2008 only one life was lost, but this offers little comfort for the De Wee family.

The pressure around matric exams is intense, and, some would argue, out of all proportion, especially when weighed against the fear and dread it often invokes in students. Matric is a serious business, but it’s not life and death. This kind perspective is crucial if we are to avoid the occasional suicides that have preceded or followed matric exams in years’ past.

The same perspective is as important for families living in small communities where school principals hold power and influence. And last week, as the rains fell and the rivers rose, education authorities should have put out the word to families that their children’s safety comes first.

Better awareness of the power of radio could have made a difference. In a situation of extreme weather, with people particularly eager for news, a series of radio and television announcements could have delivered the all-important information – how dangerously the rivers were flooded, what to do about the next day’s exams, where to go, and most important of all, not to risk one’s life for the sake of an exam.