Lihle Skeyi, a pupil at Victoria Girls High School takes a tour of Albany Museum.
Welcome to the Radio Workshop!
South Africa’s past has led to an abundance of diverse cultures and traditions. The Radio Workshop is celebrating Heritage Day, 24 September 2011. We’ll be journeying to the past with two young girls who share what their heritage means to them. Lihle Skeyi and Aviwe Diko, both high school learners in Grahamstown find new meanings in their cultures and traditions.
Listen to the entire episode by clicking on the track below. Feel free to download the track or share via Facebook or Twitter.
The Radio Workshop would like to thank Lihle Skeyi and Aviwe Diko, as well as the tour guides at Albany Museum for sharing their stories with us.
Aviwe Diko,15-year old, high-school learner at Nthaba Maria School
And that’s all from this week’s Radio Workshop!
No time to listen to the entire show? Pick and choose what you want to listen to below! Or subscribe to our iTunes podcast to get full episodes delivered to you every week.
All children have the right to health – and this means much more than not being sick. It means access to a clean and safe environment, to good medicines and treatment – as well as the time to play! The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child celebrated its 20th anniversary in November 2009. In part two of our series on children’s rights, we take a look at the right to health. Article 24 of the Convention says that, “all children have the right to the highest attainable standard of health”.
No time to listen to the entire show? Pick and choose what you want to listen to below! Or subscribe to our iTunes podcast to get full episodes delivered to you every week.
Welcome to the Show!
Radio Workshop host Mbali Vilakazi welcomes listeners to the show.
The Radio Workshop broadcasts every Saturday at 12 noon on SAfm. If you live in South Africa, you can listen live on air. Tune your radio to a frequency between 104 to 107FM to find SAfm.
Children’s Commentaries on Health
Learners from Esselen Park High School in Worcester, Western Cape tell us what it’s like to be sick and what it means to be healthy.
What does it mean to be healthy?
Shirley Pendlebury and Lori Lake of the University of Cape Town’sChildren’s Institute tell us that access to clean water and a clean environment are also part of children’s right to health.
Health rights and the South African Children’s Act
The South African Children’s Act gives important rights to children as young as 12-years old regarding their health. Prinslean Mahery, a senior researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Children’s Institute, tells us more.
Nonnie’s story
We close today’s show with a story recorded by Nonkhanyiso Mphanga. Nonnie lives at a St Joseph’s Home near the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. She knows almost everyone at the hospital because she’s been in and out so many times. She tells us why she needs permanent access to oxygen and what it’s like to live with a serious health problem.
Join us next week for more from the Radio Workshop. We hope you’ve enjoyed the show!
Click here to listen to previous Radio Workshop podcasts. And click here to subscribe to our iTunes podcast to receive a new episode every week.
November marks the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In part two of our series we take a look at children’s right to health. Article 24 of the Convention says that, “all children have the right to the highest attainable standard of health”. As we’ll hear, from both adult specialists and children themselves, access to health means much more than not being sick.
No time to listen to the entire show? Pick and choose what you want to listen to below! Or subscribe to our iTunes podcast to get full episodes delivered to you every week.
Welcome to the Show!
Radio Workshop host Mbali Vilakazi welcomes listeners to the show.
The Radio Workshop broadcasts every Saturday at 12 noon on SAfm. If you live in South Africa, you can listen live on air. Tune your radio to a frequency between 104 to 107FM to find SAfm.
Children’s Commentaries on Health
Learners from Esselen Park High School in Worcester, Western Cape tell us what it’s like to be sick and what it means to be healthy.
What does it mean to be healthy?
Shirley Pendlebury and Lori Lake of the University of Cape Town’sChildren’s Institute tell us that access to clean water and a clean environment are also part of children’s right to health.
Health rights and the South African Children’s Act
The South African Children’s Act gives important rights to children as young as 12-years old regarding their health. Prinslean Mahery, a senior researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Children’s Institute, tells us more.
Nonnie’s story
We close today’s show with a story recorded by Nonkhanyiso Mphanga. Nonnie lives at a St Joseph’s Home near the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. She knows almost everyone at the hospital because she’s been in and out so many times. She tells us why she needs permanent access to oxygen and what it’s like to live with a serious health problem.
Join us next week for more from the Radio Workshop. We hope you’ve enjoyed the show!
Click here to listen to previous Radio Workshop podcasts. And click here to subscribe to our iTunes podcast to receive a new episode every week.
Today we meet more of the high school learners who made it through the finals of the 2009 Nkosi Albert Luthuli Oral History Competition. You may remember that we recently featured the winner, Fairouz West from Cape Town. Today we hear from some of the other young historians whose project impressed the judges. Take a listen!
No time to listen to the entire show? Pick and choose what you want to listen to below! Or subscribe to our iTunes podcast to get full episodes delivered to you every week.
Welcome to the Show!
Radio Workshop host Mbali Vilakazi welcomes listeners to the show.
The Radio Workshop broadcasts every Saturday at 12 noon on SAFM. Visit SAFM’s website for information about how to find their frequency in your area.
Tebello Molelekoa presents her project
Ideline Akimana receives her award
History in my community
The plight of refugees was one of the topics that young historians could choose to explore in this year’s Nkosi Albert Luthuli Oral History Competition. Let’s hear from Tebello Molelekoa and Ideline Akimana.
To listen to other programmes about South African history, click here!
Patricia Simons and her poster
Religion in my community
Another topic that was popular among this year’s oral historians was places of workshop. Patricia Simons from North West province profiled a forgotten Bakgatla heritage site, while Micaela Ellson from Mpumalanga found out more about the mosque across the road from her school.
The Radio Workshop broadcasts every Saturday at 12 noon on SAFM. Visit SAFM’s website for information about how to find their frequency in your area.
Signing out
That’s it for this week, join us next week for more from the Radio Workshop. We hope you’ve enjoyed the show!
Click here to listen to previous Radio Workshop podcasts. And click here to subscribe to our iTunes podcast to get new episodes delivered to you every week.
Sunday, August 9th, is National Women’s Day. Women’s Day commemorates the march of twenty thousand South African women of all colours to the Union Buildings in Pretoria in 1956 – that’s 53 years ago! Today we find out about one of the women who led the march in 1956, Lilian Ngoyi. And later in the show, we get some expert opinions about what makes a good judge. Stay tuned!
No time to listen to the entire show? Pick and choose what you want to listen to below! Or subscribe to our iTunes podcast to get full episodes delivered to you every week.
Welcome to the Show
Radio Workshop host Lesedi Mogoatlhe welcomes listeners to the show.
The Radio Workshop broadcasts every Saturday at 12 noon on SAFM. Visit SAFM’s website for information about how to find their frequency in your area.
Audio Profile: Lilian Ngoyi
Women’s Day commemorates the march of twenty thousand South African women of all colours to the Union Buildings in Pretoria in 1956. The women protesters collected more than 100,000 signatures from around the country and they delivered bundles of these signed petitions to Prime Minister J.G. Strijdom’s office. One of those women who led the march in 1956 was Lilian Ngoyi (pictured above).
We spoke to the former Minister of Justice, Enver Surtee, and to one of South Africa’s most famous human rights lawyers, George Bizos (pictured above), to find out more about being a judge.
For more information about the history of Constitution Hill, the home of the Constitutional Court (and a former prison!), visit their website!
This Week in History
Find out what important events happened this week in history!
That’s it for this week, join us next week for more from the Radio Workshop. We hope you’ve enjoyed the show. Feel free to leave a comment below. We’d love to know what you think!
Click here to listen to previous Radio Workshop podcasts. And click here to subscribe to our iTunes podcast to get new episodes delivered to you every week.
How Cape Town's new Greenpoint Stadium will look when it's ready for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
One of the pleasures of being a journalist is the chance to find out, first-hand, how things work – be it visiting the construction site of Cape Town’s stadium for the 2010 Soccer World Cup [listen to the audio postcard] – or watching Parliament elect the country’s new president.
On this occasion, it was the opportunity to sit in the same room as the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) while it interviewed a long list of judges applying for positions in the country’s highest courts.
Not only is it fascinating to listen to the exchanges between members of the JSC and those applying for positions in the Constitutional Court or the Supreme Court of Appeal, it is still thrilling to realise how different this is from the repressive past system under which we used to live. Before 1994, it was unheard of that this process would be open to anyone who cared to come and observe.
Until South Africa became a democracy in 1994 with a Bill of Rights and a Constitution, the process of choosing judges in South Africa took place behind closed doors. Who became a judge was based entirely on political preference – it was all up to the Minister of Justice to decide who would become a judge and who would not. And in the years preceding 1994, the Minister of Justice represented the all-white, minority government committed to the policy of apartheid.
Since South Africa adopted a new Constitution and a Bill of Rights, the process of choosing the judiciary is the responsibility of a committee that recommends names to the country’s president who then has the final say. This is known as the Judicial Service Commission, which is made up of 24 members. These include the Chief Justice, the Minister of Justice & Constitutional Development, members of political parties, and senior lawyers and advocates.
At the hearings held in Cape Town recently, the Radio Workshop had the opportunity to speak to one of the country’s finest human rights lawyers, George Bizos, who is also a member of the JSC.
George Bizos - world renowned human rights advocate and member of the Judicial Service Commission.
We asked George Bizos to explain why it was so important for South Africa to change the way in which it selects its judges. This is what he had to say:
[Duration: 1 min 49 sec.]
“We had a very bad experience in South Africa because judges were appointed only from the white community, and only men, and only – in the last 40 years before the advent of democracy in South Africa – people who were supporters, in the main with a few exceptions, of the government’s policies. They really were no black judges, there were only one or two women who were ever appointed.
And they were appointed by the Minister of Justice and one never knew why. Because they were party supporters, or because they were golf partners with the Minster, or because they had a friend who was a friend with the Minister, but it was a process that was not transparent, that wasn’t there for people to see.
Because of that experience, we who were concerned with establishing a new type of administration of justice for democracy decided that Judges would be appointed and there were criteria. That they must have a legal qualification, they must be persons of integrity, and they should be persons who had shown during their lives that they did concern themselves with the affairs of the communities in which they lived.
George Bizos went on to explain that in order for all citizens to feel that they will be treated fairly and justly, it was vital for an institution as important as the judiciary to include men and women from different backgrounds and ethnicities.
This is especially the case with the highest court in the country, the Constitutional Court, and when it was being formed in 1995, its creators spoke about why diversity was so important.
Here’s George Bizos again:
[Duration 1 min, 5 sec.]
And we believed that because the judges were only white and men in the past, that they should be selected on the basis of having regard of gender – that is men and women, and also the colour and ethnic diversity in South Africa, and to put it rather graphically … if the person whose rights were said to have been violated, taken away from them, comes to [the constitutional] court and looks up, and there are 11 judges there, must be able to see at least one of them and say, ‘Hey, there is someone there that looks like me, has had the same or similar human experiences as I have had, and I’m not in a completely strange place, in a strange environment, my complaint will be given serious consideration and justice will be done to me’.
The entrance to South Africa's Constitutional Court.
A full bench of judges inside the Constitutional Court.
