(tribal music)
Ubuntu is a way of life.
It means helping each other.
It's about being neighborly.
Coming together of people.
It means a performance of humanity.
(tribal music)
Children's Radio Foundation was really excited
to grapple with this project.
Ubuntu the classic definition still resonates with me,
that I am because you are.
It speaks of our interconnectedness.
I can't be human on my own lonesome.
I need you as much as you need me.
Ubuntu is about that practice of humanity.
We are in this together
and that we don't exist without each other.
Good afternoon this is the Teen Expression with me,
Monique, in the studio at Radio Atlantis 107.9,
in the heartbeat of the community.
(tribal music)
(children talking through radio)
(applause)
A person is a person because of other people.
For me it means I can't do anything without someone else.
For me Ubuntu is a spirit of giving, of caring,
and sharing with people.
Ubuntu for me means, helping another person.
Helping a neighbor and just being nice and being kind.
The exploration of Ubuntu got the young people excited
because it was asking them to examine something that was
known to them and to their community.
It was asking for a re-examination, a re-interpretation.
For me Ubuntu being able to stand
and stretch an extra hand.
It begins with me.
In South Africa, the dominant narrative in mainstream
media is that youth are apathetic.
Violent.
Hopeless.
Diseased.
They have very few spaces where they can express themselves.
Where they can contribute to opinion and where they can
advocate for things that they need in their lives.
So with this awareness Children's Radio Foundation creates
these spaces where young people can be young reporters
and they broadcast radio shows every week that are
researched, produced and hosted by young people themselves.
(guitar music)
We're looking for young people who are curious
about themselves and the world around them.
And we are looking for young people
who want to make a difference.
In all honestly life is tough for a lot of people.
And I've experienced things.
I felt well if nobody else is going to make a difference
then I might as well try.
Being at the radio station, doing topics that are
interesting but also informative and somewhere along
the line, somebody is going to listen
and it's going to affect them.
Knowing that you helped somebody, that somebody out there
listened to your advice, that its helping them.
It's a great feeling.
Radio it's life.
It's intimate.
It reaches into homes.
Into cars.
Into public spaces.
It's immediate.
It's alive in the moment.
It remains in South Africa, a place where a communities'
voice can really be distilled.
Hyper local issues in local languages.
At these community radio stations we are nurturing
young talent and they speak to a listenership
sometimes of up to 600,000.
Sometimes bigger than our national world roster.
We wanna know the do's and don'ts.
We want to know the struggle that you went through.
When young people have the opportunity to
represent themselves you get a very different picture
to that dominant portrayal of who young people are.
We as a youth tend to forget the most important
things that we grew up with.
Sharing love.
Sharing information and experiences, to me, that's how
I practice Ubuntu.
In the face of extreme inequality, in the face of racism,
how do we practice Ubuntu?
The South Africa that we live in now, is divisive
but it's always been divisive.
Many people still have to leave their home
to go to the toilet.
They have to risk their lives if they want
to go to the toilet.
Many of them still don't have access
to running water in their homes.
Just healthcare.
A clinic, that is serviced, that has stocked medications,
trained healthcare workers.
To have access to schools.
Good schools where you have teachers
for all of your subjects.
And young people really grappled with some of these issues
because they're very real in their lives.
(instrumental music)
In our community the spirit of Ubuntu has faded away
to be honest but, in the olden days Ubuntu meant that
your child is my child but these days people are working
against each other for their own benefit.
We had our work cut out for us.
We had to go out and tell them this is what Ubuntu is.
These are examples of it.
And then realizing that so little Ubuntu is being
practiced in the community and that we really
needed to take a stand.
Through the Ubuntu project in over two years, young people
were energized about becoming active citizens.
But I think the things that we can't really talk about
is how peoples' hearts opened.
You can't measure that.
The meaning of Ubuntu is to give a lot of respect.
That's the meaning that I had walking into the project
but it changed over the course of two years.
Ubuntu is not only giving
but it's also about appreciation of others and compassion.
It's not about materials things.
A smile, to the next person, when you're walking
down the street can change that persons day.
That is a sort of Ubuntu.
Young people recognized wisdom in their elders
in ways that they had been probably frustrated with,
or resentful of.
The next day I go to my neighbors and thank them and
say "thank you" and I tell them the story.
We are all crying.
There was an acknowledgement that they are also assets.
When we attempt to listen to each other we begin the journey
of understanding the other.
We begin to dismantle our stereotypes and I think we are
more likely to be compassionate and to act from a place
of care instead of a place of fear.
What I learned was we might be different but in a
sort of way, we are the same.
It just taught me a lot.
You must be open minded, that's the thing.
You must be open minded.
The solution to all our problems:
love, peace and happiness. Ubuntu.
(children singing)
I think the exploration of Ubuntu really had
resonance with what we are trying to do with young people,
which is also around building character.
It really was an incredible tool for young people
to understand themselves and their communities better.
From a young age I would make sure there are interventions
that help the young to see the world in the sense of Ubuntu.
To have Ubuntu in their heart, and their soul
and their spirit because if those children grow up
and have their own children then the children
will also have Ubuntu cause of their parents
and the way they were brought up.
It was interesting to understand the practice of Ubuntu
in this boiling pot of our struggles.
It was an attempt to come up for air.
I'd say it changed me because I got to mix with people
from different religions, different cultures, different
communities.
Back then I didn't care about other cultures
or other people, I only cared about people
that were close to me.
But now I've friends who speak different languages.
I have learned a lot from them.
You know it taught me that giving was not a color
thing, it's not a skin color thing,
it's not a religious thing.
(tribal song)
Just the act of getting up and going about your
business and being nice to people and practicing
Ubuntu despite all of the signifiers in your life
that tell you that you are less than.
So absolutely that sense of resilience and forgiveness
lives as a grace in this country every day.
I'm optimistic because I work with young people.
I'm enthused and renewed by the ideas of young people.
Through this Ubuntu project there was a great sense
of innovation and discovery.
To meet young people who are motivated, curious, caring
about themselves, about their communities, about their
families, about their education, it is incredibly inspiring
because to have to overcome a great sense of hopelessness,
it's a human triumph really.
It's something that is incredibly brave.
I'm hopeful that there are more people like us,
they're undercover and one day Ubuntu will just be a thing
that everyone has because it's still there
but it's just people have to, I don't know,
open the box of Ubuntu and see what's inside.
It's difficult for us as youth, a handful of us, to try
and make this big dent in all of the nation.
But here we are.
We're trying.
I feel like we are living proof
that Ubuntu exists in this world.