VIDEO VOX: Female condoms – yay or nay?
Wits Vuvuzela got a hold of free issue female condoms from Campus Health, and then asked Witsies if they had had any experiences with the condoms, and what their general attitudes were towards female condoms.
Medical Science Student Council hosts annual Sports Day
A picture slideshow of the sunny day where “love and happiness” won.
Clever Boys battling Celtic for fourth place
SUCCESS IS 99% PREPARATION: The Clever Boys are ready to take on Amazulu on Saturday afternoon. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
Bidvest Wits will continue their battle with Bloemfontein Celtic for fourth place in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) this Saturday when they host Amazulu in the second-last round of matches for the season.
The Clever Boys go into the game tied on 40 points with Punya Sele Sele and are ahead only on goal difference.
Clive Barker’s charges are riding high after a 2-1 away victory over rivals University of Pretoria and have done well of late, winning two of their last three games and putting themselves in great position to finish as high as they ever have.
So impressive has the form of the Clever Boys been that captain Sibusiso Vilakazi has been a regular in Soccer Laduma’s Team of the Week. Bidvest will hope that the momentum they have built up carries them over the line ahead of Celtic in what is sure to a photo-finish.
Interestingly, Clive Barker is pitted against a man he used to coach in the national team.
Clinton Larsen is 42-years-old and the Celtic job is his first as head coach. Wits’ amiable mentor is almost 70 and has coached upward of 10 teams, including leading Bafana Bafana to their sole continental trophy in 1996.
Tactically, the two are not worlds apart.
Barker is lauded as a supreme motivator, and his ability to free players of the fear and nervousness of playing in the professional arena has earned “The Dog” respect and admiration.
Larsen, in only his third season as head coach, might be considered “wet behind the ears”. And his team is composed largely of youngsters untested in the top-flight. Despite this, Bloemfontein Celtic were able to reward their fanatic supporter base by clinching the Telkom Cup earlier this season.
The young coach has managed to get the Free State team playing attacking, at times expansive football, and few teams have managed to leave Bloemfontein with the full 3-points this season.
Both coaches rely on out-scoring their opponents, and it seems that goals will ultimately decide who clinches fourth place.
Jobson reads ‘Ride the Tortoise’
Liesel Jobson writes with an intense, explicit sense of self-awareness that almost overpowers the reader who picks up her book – if not the author herself.
She admitted as much to the audience in a reading of her latest collection of short stories, Ride the Tortise, at the Wartenweiler Library’s Writing Center on Wednesday evening.
Asked why she had not yet ventured into the longer novel form, the author, musician, and photographer thought carefully before explaining the mental process of her writing:
“It’s not that I get bored [with longer writing], I get bewildered… You see, I come to writing as a poet, and you want one word that works in a number of dimensions. I find myself looking for the metaphors in ordinary situations.”
It is this quality, of bewildering self-awareness and self-reflection; of multiple and profound meaning; and the way in which it reveals itself in ordinary moments and encounters, that pervades the characters of Jobson’s stories as much as it provides the thematic thread of her prose.
The result, which one reviewer describes as “hypnotic honesty”, is a collection of
Author Liesel Jobson Photo by: Mfuneko Toyana
unconventional narratives, that rather than handing the reader the relief of sensible resolutions or “endings”, provides something more complicated.
Jobson does not merely zoom in on the complexities of being human- of being a subject who feels, remembers and dreams, creates and destroys.
What she does is go beyond the anthropological gaze that some (rightly or wrongly) associate with realism, to offer her reader the disjointed, jarring confrontations with the self; with the elusive inner being.
Jobson attributed her uncanny eye for detail to the time she spent learning about and practising photography.
“A camera offers a way to get into focus with yourself… [and] those little decisions you make as a photographer about what to capture and in what kind of light,” she said.
Ride the Tortise certainly brims with “living stills”. Jobson’s keen observation and imagination combining like aperture and shutter speed to produce “per-second” frames of the unpredictable human experience.
SAFA unveil R450 million master plan
Kirsten Nematandani, like most people in similar circumstances, rode in to the SAFA top post on a wave of promises and enthusiasm when he was elected president of the football association, in a voting saga more intriguing than his unopposed victory suggests.
To those uninitiated to the politics of the local game, that is.
In Nematandani’s “volley of oaths” was a particular emphasis on the development of young soccer players throughout the country’s nine provinces, saying that the country’s football future lay in the youth structures, whose importance has long been lamented by football experts and the media.
“You need to invest at grassroots level in order to produce a talented pool of players”, Nematandani said at the time.
That was back in 2009 shortly after the former head of referees was elected to the highest and lucrative seat in South African football, less than a year before the country hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Yesterday, nearly four years on, Nematandani again took to the national podium to speak about youth development, this time to inform the public that SAFA would launch the organisation’s Technical Master Plan.
He announced the launch of under-13 and under-15 boys’ and girls’ league, where a 1000 boys and 1000 girls will showcase their talents and be scouted by national selectors for a chance to join a central academy that will further develop their talents, according to a report by Kick-Off magazine.
The much-anticipated plan, in short, details how SAFA will use the hundreds of millions generated by the World Cup and held until now in a FIFA Legacy trust, to invest in “grassroots” development of players and coaches via a league in SAFA’s 311 branches across the country.
The objective is clear enough: to turn Bafana, Banyana Banyana, and all the junior national teams, into formidable sides that reflect and justify South Africa’s abundant resources and widely vaunted passion for the game.
That it took a full four years to finally unveil the grand plan for the revenue of a tournament we knew we would be hosting at least five years in advance which puts the total time to almost a decade is not the main issue.
To be sure, the prolonged time it took to reveal the plan is Lilliputian compared to revelations by a recent Fifa investigation that implicates members of the very same SAFA executive Nematandani captains, in fixing at least two international games before the World Cup.
Calls by everyone from sports minister Fikile Mbalula to worried fans of the beautiful game for an independent enquiry into the controversy have fallen on deaf ears and a din of lip-service.
The figures involved in the suspected fixing are between four and ten million rand. R450 million has been made available by Fifa through the trust for development academies for the development of football in the country.
Recently, SAFA has also been reported to be close to bankruptcy.
It will be interesting to see if Nematandani and SAFA will be able to pull off the juggling act, of achieving its youth development goals, managing the huge World Cup windfall, while trying to pull itself out of a financial hole.
Clever Boys eager for fourth place finish
WITH only four games to go in the ABSA Premiership, and Bidvest Wits sitting fourth on the log, the Clever Boys’ match against reigning champions Orlando Pirates on Saturday is poised to be a thriller.
Wits are aiming to hold on to fourth place for their highest ever finish since the league’s inception in 1996, with only one point separating them from fifth-placed Supersport United. Pirates, nine points behind leaders Kaizer Chiefs, are also looking for a win with their hopes of winning a third consecutive league trophy diminishing fast.
Only a victory will keep the Bucs in the title race.
Bidvest have had a tremendous season under African Nations Cup-winning coach Clive Barker, who has the team playing attacking football. A player who has shone for Wits this season is midfielder and captain Sibusiso Vilakazi.
Playmaker: Sibusiso Vilakazi has been key to the Clever Boys’ success this season.
The 23-year-old is an important part of a Wits midfield quintet that has played the socks off a majority of opponents this season. His performances, especially over the past two seasons, have earned the Meadowlands-born lynchpin plenty of admirers.
Although he has only scored three goals this season, Vilakazi is chief instigator of Bidvest’s forward play and has an eye for a pass, combined with pace and skill.
He is modest about his own talents though, and accepts praise reluctantly.
“I never thought or imagined I would be a pro footballer. But once I joined Wits I could see myself one step closer to making the first team.”
“Zuma” or “General”, as he has been dubbed by supporters, took to the game at the age of eight and never looked back. He has played continually except for in his matric year when he had to decide between school and pursuing a football career.
He decided to do both and is currently studying business management at Unisa.
“It’s pressure balancing the football with the studies, but you have to commit yourself and do the job”.
Wits will be counting on their captain to do the job for them on Saturday against Pirates and lead his team to a tenth victory and step closer to a top four finish.
Hide it in a book
“In books I find…”: South Africa’s theme for World Book Day 2013 Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
That yesterday was World Book Day hardly registered on the radars of Witsies, and even the proprietor at a campus bookstore was unaware of the day.
“Really,” he exclaimed when informed about the calendar ‘event’. His eyebrows however, did not match his surprise, failing to rise and arch in the usual expression of surprise.
“I don’t really take notice of these days,” he continued when asked if business had increased as a result of the day. “Apparently there is a world toilet day as well”.
It was a sentiment that was shared by many others on campus, who were either unaware of the day or cited a “fatigue” at the numerous days that had become official celebrations of one thing or the other.
www.worldbookday.com is the official website created, as the greeting page reads, to “help people celebrate” the day. The colourful website also offers visitors resources, such as press kits and branding, to promote their own World Book Day celebrations. It also offers a “free online festival featuring top authors and illustrators streamed live and free to celebrate World Book Day 2013”.
The show is streamed from the UK and hosted by British children’s books author. Most of the authors themselves are British and some from the USA.
The South African theme for World Book Day was “In books I find…”, and plans to celebrate the day included a 30 000 poster campaign and a Door-to-Door Reading Campaign held a day before (yesterday) to raise awareness about the day.
This year’s host province was the North West, and a worthy village was selected in the province where the awareness campaign would take place and receive a donation of books to “promote a reading culture where there was previously none”.
The differences between the www.worldbookday.com site and S.A’s www.sabooksellers.com site, responsible for country’s celebrations, are striking. The international site has a bright red and yellow colour-scheme with a playful look and feel. It is also very interactive with plenty of links to resources for librarians, booksellers, teachers and anyone else interested in marking the day.
The local site has very little colour and almost no links to further resources or ways for visitors to participate in World Book Day activities. Instead, it reads like a press release intended for adults and corporates rather than young readers and educators.
Nalibali, is a “national reading-for-enjoyment campaign to spark children’s potential through storytelling and reading”. The campaign cuts across media mediums, and can be found in newspaper supplements as well as on the internet.
Although their website made no reference to World Book Day, it shares something important with www.worldbookday.com, the site and the campaign itself. Both are colourful and interactive; with videos, links to resources and tips about inspiring children to read all in easy access. Both are patently aimed at young kids as well the educators tasked with inspiring them into a world of reading.
An article on the Nalibali website, www.nalibali.org, about the value of reading to children, explains in simple, lucid language how fundamental reading is the development of a young mind. However, it’s the picture accompanying the article that drives the message home; it shows a young schoolboy with a book in his hands and a huge smile on his face.
mfuneko@witsvuvuzela.com
Creative activist hopes to rescue mine kids
A 25-year-old Witsie has taken it upon himself to help the children of Marikana make it through school by raising money for their fees.
Eliot Moleba explains his creative freedom.
Dramatic Arts graduate responsible for Marikana school fund Photo by: Mfuneko Toyana
Dramatic arts graduate Eliot Moleba has started a fund whose proceeds will be invested by Investec and the profits used to subsidise the long-term education of the children of miners killed and injured in last August’s Marikana massacre.
The massacre made headlines around the world when police opened fire on protesting workers, killing 34 miners and injuring more than 70.
Moleba said South Africa’s history of violence against the most vulnerable people in society, which has carried over to the present day, inspired him to found the fund-raising campaign.
“As a theatre student my work tended to focus on social issues; there was always a need to speak back to the people and articulate a sense of history and the present,” Moleba said.
The Marikana Scholarship Fund aims to raise money through donations by putting the story of the children of the miners at the centre of the conversation about Marikana.
“Once the dust settled after the killing of miners, the narrative of women and wives of miners began to emerge but still the story of the kids was marginalised.”
Moleba says it was this story that was not being told that got him thinking.
But merely creating awareness around the children’s situation rang hollow for the man who now freelances in the creative industry and is also a consultant at the Wits Writing Centre.
It was this sense that “art should make a lasting difference in people’s lives” that inspired the idea for a play staged last year, The Man in the Green Jacket, highlighting the politics of what happened in Marikana.
Moleba struggled to identify how he could use his creativity to have a lasting impact. He said he finally realised education was key.
“It’s fucked up that in this country, that for you to ask for a raise, you have to be prepared to lose your life. And for an employer to make a profit, he has to be prepared to take your life,” Moleba said. This is “the reality that has continued from apartheid and must be changed”.
Two weeks ago NGO Education Africa joined the campaign and on Sunday Moleba leaves for Germany, where he will take up a 10-week scholarship that focuses on training those who make theatre for social change.
A visibly excited Moleba remained realistic about the trip and the mammoth task that organising the fund has been.
“Being in Europe I’ll be exposed to a greater market and hopefully this means more donations. It will also be a space to refine my ideas on how to use different media to execute projects.”
Moleba is no slouch in campaigning on media though. Of the 1000 people a month he interacts with, on Twitter, Facebook, on his blog and in person, he says makes sure he “personally speaks to at least 700 of them”.
And a few weeks ago musician Black Coffee retweeted Moleba’s Twitter campaign and plenty followed soon after. He admits, though, that this does not always translate into real donations.
“I don’t blame people for not donating. It’s their money and it’s up to me to go back and make the product better.”
Moleba seems to thrive on pressure and sees the sacrifices – time and money – as a small price for doing something that personally matters to him.
Moleba’s motto is an interesting variation on a common maxim: “I like biting off more than I can chew; it means there’s always more for me to chew.”
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Big Plans for Campus Control
Wits plans on rolling out an ambitious security plan starting with the appointment of a crime prevention and liaison manager by the end of next month.
The manager will be responsible for implementing the “University’s 2013 Operational Plan”.
The plan proposes a number of steps for improving security on campus, including a “Crime Awareness” program to educate students and staff, a publication called Campus Watch, and the introduction of a safe walk program.
The plan includes a proposal to improve the understanding of policies and procedures by Campus Control officers; this will be one of the responsibilities of the new crime prevention and liaison manager.
The plan, which can be found on the Wits intranet site, does not go into detail about the objectives and does not state specific dates for when plans should be implemented.
In an email response to questions by Wits Vuvuzela, about the operational plan’s stated intention to provide Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSIRA) certificate training to 35 Campus Control officers, head of security Rob Kemp said that the training had yet to take place.
“I am awaiting advice from our training consultant whether additional training is required; if so then this will be carried out through our training consultant and CLTD [Campus Learning and Training Division],” Kemp said.
In South Africa the mandate of the PSIRA derives from the Private Security Industry Regulatory Act 56 of 2001. The PSIRA website states that the “primary objective of the authority is to regulate the private security industry and to exercise effective control over the practice of the occupation of security service provider.”
Last week, Wits Vuvuzela reported that Campus Control officers had not received training on responding to incidents of a sexual nature from the Career and Counselling Development Unit (CCDU) in the past three years.
Kemp told Wits Vuvuzela that Campus Control officers would be trained to a minimum “D” level and would receive training on how to investigate incidents and process evidence. However, that training would only take place if funding could be found.
mfuneko@vuvuzela.com
City of Gold shines in Arts Festival
Zesty Work: Local graffiti artist Zesta’s mural on Main street in the CBD. Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
Braamfontein’s dull concrete facades have come alive with graffiti as part of the City of Gold Urban Arts Festival.
The festival started on Sunday and features showcases of street art by local and international artists. It’s managed by Braamfontein’s own Grayscale Concepts gallery on 33 De Korte Street.
The festival includes graffiti murals painted around the city in places like Braamfontein, Newtown, the Maboneng Precinct and Jeppestown and will also include walking tours and film screenings.
The festival is in its third year and is the brainchild of respected graffiti artist Rasty, who runs the Grayscale gallery and tattoo parlour.
The festival kicked off with an opening at the gallery where a large mural covering the entire wall of the adjacent parking lot was painted by artists Pose, Love and Curio. This was the first of many murals that will adorn the walls, alley ways and other locations around Johannesburg for the next year.
Organisers of the walking tour, Past Experiences, say that Johannesburg has the potential to become the “graffiti capital of Africa”. This is because the city has so many spaces that can be painted, and unlike overseas, art works tend to stay up for much longer and become an important part of the environment.
The aim of the festival and the art work is to enhance sites around the city that might have previously been “feared or forgotten by the city’s inhabitants”, according to the festivals website.
On a graffiti tour of the Maboneng Precinct, Troyeville and Jeppestown on Wednesday, a large group of tourists walked through parts of Johannesburg notorious for crime and violence with carefree curiosity. 
One of the tourists, a Singapore-born woman who moved to Johannesburg almost three years ago, said that this was her third time on the graffiti tour and she was amazed at the number of people who had joined the walk this year compared to last year.
“Before I came to Johannesburg I was so scared. I cried for three days because of all the things I had heard and read about South Africa,” said the woman.
The City of Gold Urban Arts Festival takes place until the 13th April and is open to the public.
Eastern Cape’s Daily Dispatch snatches investigative journalism award
Some of the winners of the 2013 Taco Kuiper Awards, from L-R: Rob Rose, Msindisi Fengu, Mzilikazi wa Afrika, Yandisa Monakali and Greg Marinovich. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa.
Journalist Msindisi Fengu and photographer Yandisa Monakali from East London paper the Daily Dispatch were awarded the 7th Taco Kuiper award for investigative journalism yesterday at the Rand Club in Johannesburg.
Their story, Hostels of Shame, a two month investigation into the conditions of more than 70 rural school hostels in the Eastern Cape, culminated in what the judges called “powerful, original and relentless slog-work” that uncovered the appalling state of the hostels in the province.
What made the victory particularly sweet for the Eastern Cape journalists was the fact that, in Mfengu’s words, the story involved a large element of “luck”.
The luck Mfengu refers to is pure modesty on his part.
The idea for the story came when the small publication reported a local MEC’s statement, that prisoners were “far better” to live in than the hostels, as a signal for a much bigger story.
Without the resources of larger papers, and a subsequently small newsroom, the Dispatch’s approach to news was to identify “concept stories” and assign journalists to pursue these on a thorough and long term basis, according to the Dispatch’s editor Bongani Siqoko.
“It was Fengu’s insistence on visiting each and every hostel that made the difference,” added the visibly proud editor.
And he had plenty reason to be proud.
The pair walked away with the closely contested award and the generous R200 000 prize money, wrestling it from 2010 and 2011 winners Sunday Times team Stephan Hofstatter, Rob Rose and Mzilikazi waAfrika, as well as Greg Marinovich of the Daily Maverick, who were joint runners up.
The team from the Sunday Times had three entries on the final shortlist of eight.
One the investigative report into deputy president Kgaleme Motlanthe’s partner’s dubious business dealings, the other, “It’s Not Just Ayoba”, a piece on the misuse of power Communications minister Dina Pule, as well their powerful report into the Cato Manor police death squads.
Photographer Marinovich’s breakthrough story into what really happened when 36 miners were killed by police in Marikana during wage protests in 2012 was a strong contender as well.
Paul Steiger, one of the founders of Pro Publica, who was the guest speaker at the awards, emphasized journalism that “strives to be honest and exercises care in reporting” as key criteria for the awards.
His remarks, and the fierce investigative journalism on display at the awards, reinforce Anton Harber’s sentiments that “South African investigative journalism is amongst the best in the world”.
Lack of training for Campus Control
UNDERCOOKED: Campus Control officers have yet to receive training on sexual harassment. Photo by: Mfuneko Toyana
Campus Control officers responsible for security have not received training on how to deal with incidents of a sexual nature for close to three years despite repeated attempts by the Career and Counselling Development Unit (CCDU) to organise this training.
In an interview with Wits Vuvuzela, Maria Wanyane, sexual harassment advisor at the CCDU, said Campus Control officers had not received training from the unit on dealing with sexual issues for close to three years.
She said that Campus Control had been consistently unable to schedule time to attend training that was offered by CCDU.
Wits head of security Rob Kemp, in an email reply to questions about the kind of training received by officers, said that all Campus Control security are trained to a minimum “D” level and will receive training on how to investigate incidents and process evidence later this year .However, the training will only take place if they can secure funding for the programme.
Kemp said that Campus Control was in the third phase of a three-year programme which, “will not deal with sexual abuse per se, but with how to investigate and report all kinds of irregularities and abuse.”
Two Campus Control guards, who have worked at the university for several years, said they have not received training on how to deal with sexual abuse issues and were not familiar with the sexual harassment policy and procedure they are meant to enforce.
The officers asked not to be named for fear of being reprimanded, because they had been warned by management to speak about security matters at the university”.
One officer was particularly concerned about not knowing how to deal with incidents where sexual activity seemed to be consensual but was against the university’s public indecency rules.
Asked about the “level D” minimum requirements for all Campus Control security, the officers were unaware of this requirement, confusing it with first aid training, which they said they had not received either.
In a later email, when questioned about the statistical incidence of crimes on campus and in particular the frequency of sexual incidents, Kemp was only able to say that records are kept and crime statistics prepared monthly, every six months and annually. These were then submitted to the university management.
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We Should Be Writing podcast
- Bonus Episode: There's a Zille on my stoepSince her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]