Is school cool? What’s really going down for Grahamstown youth at the thirteen high schools in the city area?
Do they have common issues, problems, challenges and aspirations? Y4Y is a brand new radio show made for and with Grahamstown’s high school learners.
Is school cool? What’s really going down for Grahamstown youth at the thirteen high schools in the city area?
Do they have common issues, problems, challenges and aspirations? Y4Y is a brand new radio show made for and with Grahamstown’s high school learners.
Broadcast live every Thursday at 5pm on Radio Grahamstown, it includes school news, features, competitions and music chosen from the learners’ top tracks of the week.
There are also in-studio debates where youngsters can air their views on issues important to them both from behind the mike and via Mxit.
“We want to give young people a space that is their own,” says Khaya Thonjeni, the show’s presenter and one of its producers.
“Our listeners come from a wide variety of backgrounds but there are certain things all teenagers think about identity, relationships, dealing with drink and drugs, family life, music and fitting in.
We’re concentrating on those points of connection and, where there are differences, trying to get people to understand each other better.”}
Currently, the show’s producers help with the technical side but the content is generated by the youngsters.
“This has already created some hard-hitting programming,” says executive producer, Jayne Morgan.
“We recently had the issue of fighting between established and recently returned Xhosa initiates
highlighted by two different schools.
It was picked up in the studio discussion about gender equality. Strong views came out and it was interesting to hear how the boys and girls were polarised.
What was also important was that everyone in the discussion black and white had personal experience of the issue. This is something we would never have got to if we were imposing ideas from outside.” "
If you miss Y4Y when it’s transmitted, you can listen to it online or download it as a podcast. The creative use of social media is very much part of the show.
“We chose the Mxit platform so that people can join in the debates at a fraction of the cost of an SMS or a call,” says Thonjeni.
“We want the communication to be two-way. We’ve had an amazing response. As soon as we went on air people were signing up and commenting”.
The programme is part of R5-million Iindaba Ziyafika (the news is coming) project funded by the US-based Knight Foundation and run through The Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies.
One of its main aims is to increase the Grahamstown community’s access to, and use of, the media, particularly through cellphones.
Y4Y is the first in a number of media initiatives involving Radio Grahamstown and Grocott’s Mail that will work towards that goal.
These include a weekly local current affairs show and a daily news bulletin produced using citizen journalists, Grocott’s Mail staff and journalism students.
Tune in to Y4Y every Thursday between 5pm and 6pm on Radio Grahamstown 102.1 or visit the programme at www.grocotts.co.za/y4y to hear the latest edition, read the blogs and see the pictures.
