The 1World Community Radio Program

Stay tuned for the One World Community Radio program on eighty nine point five FM Bush Radio Cape Town. Eighty eight point seven FM WRHU Hempstead Radio Hofstra University. Eighty eight point one FM WCWP Brookville LIU Post. Eighty eight point three FM WRCT Pittsburgh Carnegie Mellon University. Eighty eight point three FM WBCR Loudonville Sienna College.

College, ninety eight point one and one zero five point nine FM WKZE Salisbury Redhook, and around the world at wrhu.org. This is One World Community Radio coming up next on your favorite community radio station.

You're listening to the one world radio program, a collaboration between eighty nine point five FM Busch Radio Cape Town, South Africa and eighty eight point seven FM WRHU Radio, Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Broadcasting from the Push Radio Soft River Studios in Cape Town is host me, Lydia Mahwana. Broadcasting from WRHU Studios in Hempstead, New York are your hosts, Cody Miller and Andy Gladding. We welcome you to join us for the next hour as we celebrate the power of community radio, music, language, and culture. The world is a big place, but using the power radio, we're bringing it right to your door.

Now Bush Radio and WRHU welcome you to the one world of community radio.

887 WRHU Hempstead Radio Hofstra University. 895 Bush Radio Cape Town, South Africa. Eighty eight three WRCT Pittsburgh Radio Carnegie Tech. You're listening to the One World Radio Show. And, yeah, we're back and joined by our usual hosts.

I'm Cody. As well, joining me in our virtual studios is Ricky Hubert out at WRHU on Long Island. Khusi Veto is also joining us in Bush Radio, and we also have special guest, founder of Bush Radio, Brenda Leonard. How are y'all going this morning and afternoon?

We're good. We're good in Cape Town. Yes. Kussi and myself.

I we're fine. It's during the day now. It's around about twenty past three in Cape Town, and we have a sun. It's been a while since we had a sun because it's cold.

I was just gonna say that. Was gonna say ever since we started doing this with Cusi because of the seasons, you've always said in the beginning, it's cold in Cape Town. When's that stopping?

We are actually in spring now.

Oh, good.

I was gonna say, are you slowly defrosting? Yes. Heading into summer. I have been in the Southern Hemisphere, and we are finally heading into fall, which is one of my favorite seasons. I know y'all cannot relate, but I personally love the cold.

I do not like when it is above, like, 30 degrees Celsius or even above, like, 25. So this is I am glad it is finally cooling off a little bit here in Pennsylvania.

I would agree with you, Cody. Same here in New York. I like it when it cools down. I know I was here saying our friends in Bush can't relate, but our friends at Bush are celebrating a very special milestone, thirty years of Bush Radio, which is the reason why we're gathered here today with Brenda. So, Brenda, tell the listeners who might not know all over the world who listen to this program what Bush Radio is and how it first came to be.

I know it's a very long winded history, but get just give us a little bit of an overview.

Okay. Thank you. So Bush Radio is a community radio station in South Africa, and we're also the first community radio station that started in South Africa. So we our slogan is the mother of community radio because we're basically the mother we lead to all the other community radio stations into their existence. So currently, in South Africa, we've got 280 community radio stations, and Bush Radio was the first.

In terms of our history, in the early nineteen nineties or early like, late nineteen eighty nine, where the state of emergency this is before Mandela was released and other political prisoners were released from prison. So 1988 '89, state of emergency. And what it meant what the state of emergency meant is that all media, all forms of community media were not allowed to operate. In addition to that, you had state editors, for instance, in the newsrooms, and they would determine what could be published and what could not be published. And a lot of other, issues in terms of rights and what you could be done, what you could do and what you can't do.

Like, I always tell young people here at Bush Radio, when three people stood on a corner, maybe going to a shop, they will be considered an illegal gathering under the state of emergency. So they would be arrested for actually being together. So things like that. But in any case, so it was during this time that the idea of forming Bush Radio actually started. It started with a number of community organizations that fought apartheid, anti apartheid organizations basically coming together and saying, we need to get information out, and we need to get that information out quickly.

So we need to start a form of media that can do that. And when they looked around, they said, let's start a radio station, but it must be a community radio station that talks in our accents and talks about our issues. And at that time, there was a term they used, bread and butter issues. And that means the local local issues, whether your streets are swept, the electricity campaigns, and things like that that they wanted to see and hear about in the media. So force fast forward two years later to 1991, Bush Radio was then established.

We applied for a license to the apartheid government because even though it was 1991, the apartheid government was in existence until 1994. So we applied for license. They then refused. We applied again. They refused.

And in 1993, at the beginning of the year, we said, listen. These the laws of this government doesn't affect us or that we don't have to adhere to those laws because we didn't vote for this government. And because of that, we do not recognize the broadcast laws. So even though we applied for license twice and it was refused, we are gonna basically broadcast without their permission. And we did a pirate broadcast for four hours.

And the next day, the post office, which is the institution that normally issued the license, as well as the security police came to our station, our premises, and they confiscated the transmitter. They arrested two people at that time and basically took them through the court system. They arrested them, charged them, and then they had to go to court. The court case went on for a year. And after that year, it was kicked out because by that time, we were just about going into elections.

And it was then decided, let's kick the case out, because there's sort of interim legislation in place to establish community radio after the elections. So this is 1994. Bush Radio then got its transmitter back, and the case was dropped and everything. And then in after our elections, which happened on the 04/27/1994, this is the first democratic elections in South Africa. After that, the broadcast authority basically asked community radio stations to apply for licenses, and Bush Radio applied, and we got the license in 1995.

So that's a very short history. There's a lot

of other things, but I'll stop there.

Brenda, what took me most with your story was how you were saying the government wouldn't give you the license or you weren't following that government's rules, but you still went ahead and did it anyway and did the pirate broadcast because you believed so much in what you were doing. How did you all muster up the courage to do that and stand up to this government? Because that's very inspiring and very creative.

That time and even during apartheid, there was a lot of activism that happened. So people opposed the government. And if you understood the apartheid government in its entirety, you had to understand that you needed to fight the government at all levels. So whether you fight the government so media shapes the minds of people, and it was very important that that's also seen as a terrain of struggle that was called that time. So to mobilize the people, it was a lot of anti apartheid organizations that came together to establish Bush Radio, and those people were all activists, all actively fighting the apartheid government in their field.

So some of it were workers' organizations like trade unions. Some of it were children's rights organizations. Some of it were sports bodies, cultural bodies, cultural groups, etcetera. It was all people who's who were disenfranchised by the apartheid government. So just getting that together, it was easy easier.

I think the most difficult thing was very few people actually knew what radio was because we never had access to actually go into a studio as black South Africans and go learn about what radio and how to produce radio and how to structure program schedule or any of those things. We've never done that. And that was one of the difficult areas. And the second one was it was actually illegal in South Africa to own a transmitter, and you need a transmitter to broadcast. So a interesting story how we got the transmitter, it was actually sent through the diplomatic pouch from Germany.

We had a funder called Friedrich Eberstufting. It's I I can't remember the English translation, but it's a FES media. They still exist today. And they actually, through contacts in the embassies, send the transmitter in parts through a diplomatic pouch in a diplomatic pouch, and we received it. And we had to ask one of the technical universities to actually assemble it because we had no clue how to assemble this and what it should look like and all of that.

It's remember, we're talking early nineties, so we couldn't go to, like, Google or or any of those search engines to to actually find out how to do it. Yeah. So when when we started broadcasting, the transmit was only allowed on it was set on one frequency, and that was the only frequency we could use because that's how it was set up when when they put it together.

Something else, Brenda. I know you were saying with the transmitter, but what you were also saying was now you have your license, democratic elections have happened and Bush Radio was operating. You said people didn't know much about radio just as in general. So how do you build up a station from the ground up with people who might not really know about programming and things of that nature? Because obviously, have the transmitter, that's important.

But knowing how to run the day to day operations is also crucially important. How did you create that for yourselves?

During that time, like, early nineties this is all before the elections. So during that time, part of the transitional transitioning process in in in South Africa included the returning of exiles. So with the exiles, some of them worked in radio. The liberation organization, the ANC, had a radio station in Lusaka, for instance. Some of them worked in, like, Zimbabwe national broadcaster and so on.

So they came back into South Africa with skills, and we basically use their knowledge and their skills to train the others on how to do those things, how to operate a mixer, how to structure program, how to structure program schedule. Then we also it was very push radio is still very community orientated. So the community played a role in content on the station. What do you want to listen to, one, and when do you want to listen to it? Because people had lives there to take a train where they couldn't listen to radio.

So we structured the program schedule based on the needs of what people are saying. It was a exciting period during that time because there was a lot of training and development taking place. I think also we had friends across the world, really, that came and supported PushRadio's growth. So we had people in Australia that had community radio for a number of years. We had people in Sweden, for instance, that also had community radio and offered a lot of training that, and then we had Canadians that also has they were running community radio for number of years.

So the interesting thing is if you look at community radio, even now today, thirty years later, the structure's sort of a mixture of what you would find in Australia and Canada.

And, Brenda, I'm curious. You'd mentioned, you know, dealing with licensing. What did the media scene look like at that time with the apartheid government? Were there a handful of radio stations? Were there minimal to no radio stations?

During

apartheid, you had one form of radio. You had, basically, public radio only. So there were no community radio and no private radio allowed under the legislation. So that's all you had, and the public radio were completely state controlled. So the state would actually have people in the radio station running that radio station.

So that was on the radio side. You had, in terms of newspapers, you had some newspapers that emerged as independent use newspapers during that time. Before 1990, we didn't have independent newspapers. We had a few community newspapers, but it would actually be banned as it publishes, the newspapers. So you had some some newspapers and we had one television that was also public television.

So that's what it looked like. Community radio, had a lot of initiative initiatives, and they set up projects across the country emerging from Bush Radio. So when Bush Radio started because while we were applying for license, what we did is our story were told in the newspaper. And that led to a lot of other projects across across the country that had community newsletters or had, like, a news newsletter. Yes.

Not a newspaper. So they would publish that and send it out in the different communities. And they then approached us and said, listen. We want to do the same. We also want to set up a community radio station.

And that's how we established, like, a network of about 10 community radio projects across South Africa at that stage. This is before 1994.

Brenda, I know you were saying about we talked about media and how you guys were all pioneers. I'm curious to know why did you guys find that because you were talking about television stations and newspapers. Why'd you find that radio was and still is, especially community radio, the way to tackle these bread and butter issues that you were discussing earlier?

I think it's just the nature of what make radio unique. The one is it's a it's a companion, so you can listen to it while doing other things. Secondly, and I think this was a big motivator, it was cheap to create. The third reason, also a big motivator, it was immediate. So with the state of emergency, sometimes you had to get information out quickly, And you couldn't now go print it or we didn't have access to television, but you couldn't go print it or put it in a newspaper because it wouldn't be published.

So radio was chosen because you can have the information, have a script, go in studio, and then put that information out. So that's why it's quick, it's cheap to produce. And then the last reason why, because we wanted to produce something that's multilingual, that doesn't only talk English, but actually talk the languages, the local languages, and cross can can cross the barriers of illiteracy that existed at that time. So people could talk across different languages. You didn't need to be able to read to actually listen to the content, and those were some of the reasons why we decided on radio.

I'm curious about how you experimented with format. Like, when you were thinking multilingual broadcasting, oftentimes in western media, they will do someone speaking in their native language, and then someone will do a voice over where you actually won't hear the native language being spoken anymore. And that's not necessarily conducive for multiple audiences to be able to understand and comprehend what is going on. I'm curious, like, were you in say, like, you do a news hour, say, you know, one line and then translating and saying it in different languages, or did you have different hours for different languages?

I'll answer that question in two ways. The one is the news, the last question you last part of the question that you've asked. The way we did news at that time is we will have a bulletin in English and then a bulletin in Xhosa, a bulletin in Afrikaans. I think today, we still do that. We do different bulletins in different languages.

So when we do headlines on the half an hour, those headlines will also be in the language that the full bulletin will be in. The programming is completely different, though. At that time, we had two or three presenters in studio talking different languages, and they will then engage and talk into the different languages. We also, at that stage, would translate something someone said, but not with voiceovers because we wanted everyone to be there. It's like you're having a conversation with your friends and you're not understanding something, and somebody just tell you, no.

That's what that that means. That's how we did it. Today, if we look at push radio today, we actually recruit our staff. They must be able to speak at least two languages so that they can then do that in studio. So someone will do an interview, in English or in is it Afrikaans and do a brief.

But they don't say, now this is a brief. They will just go over and say, I spoke to Cusi, and this is the highlights of what Cusi was saying. And in that way, they translate the important points of the conversation.

Something else I noted when looking at Bush at an overview is that majority of your staff is volunteer. And as Cody was saying with formatting, I noticed your volunteer of the year this year was the Bush Radio Biker Show. You have all different kinds of programming. And, you know, you're just saying about the staff, they have to speak at least two languages. How do you find the volunteers and say, oh, they want to do a show about this, or do you give them the topics?

How does that work so you put together this diverse style of programming that you have at Bush?

Okay. So you you're right in terms of the majority of our staff. When we talk about staff, we talk about both paid and our volunteers, but our volunteers are producing 70 of our content. So they are on air basically every day from seven until the next morning, 6AM. And on weekends from 7PM on a Friday up till Monday morning, six 6AM.

The volunteers basically take care of all the evening programming, and we have a small daytime staff. So the way we we work is we actually try not to have, like, one person as a single person doing a show. We want to have teams, and we have teams like the biker show. I have a team of people does the show, and we try to encourage that with all the other shows because that's where you get the language diversity.

So on my side, Brenda, is the quest it's not really a question, but it's a matter of training. So I know that Bushrider has been in the forefront for training, especially first timers who've been in the medias in in the K Flats. How has that been working out? And I see that also with the children's radio workshop is back again. We're empowering future leaders of the country.

But how's how's that why is it the core when it comes to training now?

I think that's something we came when PushRadio was established. Training was a very key part of what we did. Yes. We were gonna start the radio station, but people at that time, we we said we need to have access to radio, and that was the legislative part, getting that license. And the second part was using that access.

And to be able to use the access properly and responsibly, we needed to train people to be able to do that. So from the establishment of Bush Radio in the early nineties, we've actually done training through the years, and that's been one of the important pillars of what we actually do. So today, we still offer training. We offer training to young journalists, young reporters, but we also offer training to anyone who wants to make radio to be a content a radio content producer. We train those people as well.

I was smiling when Kusi asked the question because he's one of our key trainers at the station. And one project that he's always part of is every year in the October, the spring school holidays is a Robben Island Spring School. And this spring school is on Robben Island, and youth are recruited from various schools, not only in South Africa, but in SADC. And they come together for one week on Robben Island where they trained in different forms of media. So we always do the radio segment, and Kussi's been our trainer there.

I I can't remember for the last five years, I think, at least, if not more.

And while we're on the topic of Cusi, Cusi, what was your journey like with Bush Radio? What made you wanna be a part of it?

Obviously, because of unemployment, but also the love of the radio and also not understanding what's radio all about. That's where I started learning more about it, you know, using sound to tell stories, especially community stories. Then but I fell more in love into passing on knowledge, you know, on you know, giving more of what I've learned, especially when it comes to training because I enjoy that one, that part of it more.

Just explain how we came into Bush because I think people have different ways of getting into Bush Radio, and I think he he came in through one of the the ways. So how did you hear about us recruiting people?

Oh, okay. For me, I had it on a social media. I think social media was was the one that I saw it that you guys were looking for people, and you were looking for a whole lot of people, especially when it comes to if you're from the community. And what I liked about it is you guys just didn't want any experience, but you wanted to give more training into people who have never heard about Raiders. So that's how I've heard about it.

And then, yeah, man. Years later, I'm still here.

Ten years later. Damn.

And you had been listening to Bush Radio for a while then at that point. Right?

Yes. I was listening to it. Obviously, in the township, the afternoon drive was big because it was the only radio station that was playing, you know, music in the township. Most of the commercial radio station didn't wanna play it until until when other countries wanted I mean, I'm saying other country, until other radio stations wanted to be involved in it. So most of the things that are happening in the communities, Bush Radio was one of the first station to play them or not be scared of.

And also with the content, unfiltered, although respectful. So those are one of the fascinating things that attracted me.

Discuss some of the because I was seeing when reading about Bush, you've had many partnerships with you were talking about crew, your children's program, the schools, HIV and AIDS education project, South African Red Cross Society. Discuss some of these partnerships, Brenda, if you could get a little deeper into them and the impact that it has on you all at Bush Radio.

Okay. So, I think the partnerships really, even today, are really developed out of need a need in the community. So if you talk about like, we had a project called YAH February, which was in February. It was youth against AIDS. So YAA 2,000.

And that project ran about, four years. And the reason we started that project was actually because there was a huge increase in HIV and AIDS infections amongst young people. And so when I talk about need and we respond to a need, that's that's basically how most projects are actually started. And this project then used music, hip hop music specifically, and used that to educate young people about about HIV and AIDS. And we did workshops at schools with a on e program, like a a week or daily on air program.

Then we also did a a culmination every year in a concert, and the concert were all local artists, hip hop artists. And they had to write the music specifically for the concert, and we then produced the CD after that. So that was one project. Our relationship with Red Cross Society, which we know they across the world, they're an international body offering first aid and and humanitarian support, and that also happened during that. So what they did is they would go out into different communities.

We, for instance, in in South Africa, we have a lot of floods during winter, and they would go out into the different communities and hand out soup and just any support they can, and we would then partner with them and go with the radio station with the broadcast unit and broadcast from there so that people can tell their stories and and say what's happening. But those were some of our projects. A key program that Kushi Kushi also mentioned and you mentioned is our crew program. So it's children's radio education workshop, and we recruit children between the ages of six and 18. And we train them in producing content in how to be on air, how to present, how to research, how to do interviews.

We train them in all of that. But on Saturdays from 9AM till 12PM, they do the content. So they then basically produce the programs. And that is crew. And crews actually the crew program actually started in 1996.

So it's one of our long longest standing programs that we do have on a obviously, the team changes every year. We we do further recruitment. Once they're 18, then they can no longer be part of the program except maybe as a facilitator to basically support the other people. In out of crew in, I think, in about February, we basically developed a, at that time, a radio kittocracy conference. It's radio kit and democracy we put together and conference, and that and they dealt with issues that can't be dealt with on the radio program.

So for instance, how children portrayed in the media, any laws relating to to children and the media, etcetera. And we developed that, and today, we do it as a media kytocracy conference. And it's normally a five day conference. Similar to what Robben Island does, we have theme based. So we look at the theme for the year.

So maybe the challenge, social media, and fake news, and something like that, And then we produce content in relating to that. But we don't only produce radio. We produce video. We produce photog photos. So photography is a part of that.

We also do a blog, etcetera. So so those are some of the things, some of the programs that we do. But I think, generally, there must be a need, and because of the need, we respond with a project.

You had mentioned fake news and social media and how you're a community station. How do you teach when you're doing the trainings with people who are adults coming in for training, children coming in for training, who wanna learn more about this? How do you teach them not to get in? Because I know the media world is a big circus right now. How do you teach them not to kind of get into that fake news, like, that kind of thing?

It's more just stay on the stay on the path.

Yeah. For us, we always tell anyone, even the staff, we won't necessarily we do not necessarily want to be first, but we do want to be correct. So this whole thing about breaking the story and so on, we're not necessarily gonna break stories at that level. But when you put something on push radio, you know it's fact checked and you know the information is correct. And that's what our listeners appreciate.

So they will come to Bush Radio because they know if we listen to the news, we know it's gonna be reliable. We know we can trust it. I'll tell you a funny story one day, and it's not fake news related. But one morning, we get a call from one of the provincial ministers. So South Africa have provincial ministers and national ministers as in those in cabinet.

And this minister phoned us, and she said, I'm listening to Bush Radio, and I'm I just heard I'm being sued today.

And she didn't know she was gonna be sued, but we ran the studio because someone that was gonna sue her actually send us the information. So that was a funny story. Coming to fact check, am I being sued today with the station?

That's really funny that she act that that that's how she found out. That's great that she found out through you. What do those moments mean when people list listeners just in general no matter who they are, whether they're in the cabinet or not, when they come back and say, oh, I just I got this out of bush. I was in the crew program, and I got this out of it professionally and personally. Whatever it is, any kind of takeaway, what does that mean to you and to Koosh?

You both can answer this question as a manager, as a broadcaster. What does that mean to the both of you being a part of this?

I think that is it's it's very fulfilling because it shows that what you want to achieve has been achieved through that person. I think we get it through a lot of lot of people with us celebrating thirty years, where people coming back that still listens to Bush Radio today, that still carries Bush Radio in their heart. I'll give you two examples. On our crew program, we have a mother that joined PushRadio's crew program when she was 12. A mother she brings every Saturday, she brings her two children that participates in the crew program today, and she's there to assist and facilitate.

So I'm not gonna mention names. So that's one example. On our Bush Radio board, and we have a board that's elected through community organizations. But on our board, the chairperson as well as our secretary are both people that participated in crew. So you have, like, a cycle of people somehow coming back at another stage.

So those are two examples that I'll use.

And, Kussi, how about you? What are some stories you could share?

There's been quite a few where, for example, with the segment called job shop where we would read jobs that we find online. And then people, when we share them or via our WhatsApp, they will sometimes come back and say, yo. Thanks, Bush Radio. You know? Even though it's something easy that people can just go to the Internet and search the jobs, but they would call us, like, or send us a message or even including coming to the station sometimes looking for those jobs, you know, traveling different parts of Cape Town.

But at the mostly, it's more of people are listening. They will call in and yeah. And remember with the radio, we always have also silence listeners where they will just confirm if maybe we're doing an outside podcast somewhere. They will tell you about this particular day that they remember that Bush Radio changed their lives.

Changing lives.

I wanted to add something. One of the artist, he's a painter, basically, came in, and I think he was interviewed by Cusi, actually. And he came in and he explained his art and so on. And he was saying, like, he haven't sold any pieces, nothing like that. So it's a bit of a struggle for him to survive.

And immediately after that, he actually posted on social media because from that interview, somebody heard and actually called him and bought his painting, and he put it on social media. I just sold this just after my interview with Bush Radio.

I mean, that really just goes to show the impact of, you know, people really are listening and just how tapped into the community, you know, and vital these local community stations are. I'm curious. So you had mentioned earlier, Brenda, so there's over 250 community radio stations in South Africa. So in The United States, many of

80.

Wow. So in The United States, many of our community radio stations partner together to share content and make sure our populations are well informed. Is there similar infrastructure in South Africa? Do stations partner across cities, like, share content between, like, Cape Town and Joburg? And what is kind of the infrastructure for covering rural areas outside of the city?

Okay. So we do partner with other radio stations. However, the South African law our broadcast law in South Africa basically limits the number of sharing of information you can have. And for community radio, that's at 20%. So of your content, you can't have more than 20% of shared content, and they define it as syndicated content.

There is one that the government does. It's basically talk to the government, and the government will go on, like, 120 of those community radio stations to report the communities of what they're doing and also to take calls. Now the important thing is we, for years, we didn't want to take this program because it it goes through the government. If there's anything, any stages, any laws that's in the discussion stage and it's not finalized where people can make input, the budgeting process, all of those things will be will they will take it to the community, radio stations, and so on. And we always thought it might affect our independence.

So we, as a station, we actually deliberately avoided those programs. But the advantage with that program those programs are that you have a toll free number, and anyone that listens to the broadcast can call in and they can speak to the president if it's if the president is on air, or they can speak directly to the minister and ask their questions. So later on, we thought that adds value to and it sort of makes the ministers and their departments accountable, and they can also hear real life challenges that communities are facing. So we started taking those programs for those reasons. So that's one.

But even with that program, because it's syndicated and the 20 syndication has limits that, you don't always take all the programs that's offered. You need to actually plan it out. So that's one. But I think, generally, we do share content. If there's a protest in Johannesburg as a community radio station, we're not gonna send someone there, but we'll we will contact one of the radio stations, maybe at Joseph M, and say there's a a riot in Soweto.

Can you send us any sound? Can we speak to one of your journalists so that they can tell us what's happening? So we do do that. Yes.

So for example, would this show be considered towards your syndicated if there are no other stations in South Africa that are covering it?

No. It won't. Because it's local. It's South African syndication.

Okay. If you could describe because you were saying before about people calling in and stuff. I'll see online on social media sometimes, Bush Radio's Advice Hour, and even Kusi was talking about people with job postings and coming in. Really, you guys are really a present force in the community. Describe kind of how that has evolved in the thirty years of Bush, the role in the community.

Obviously, it has evolved greatly, but describe from you as someone who's been there from the beginning.

I think the the the community participation part have changed over the over time. When we started in 1995, after we were licensed we got the license, we went on air, people would not own into the studio. And that was still that we had to break down a lot of barriers that that people had. So remember, we're coming from an oppressive apartheid system. This is now 1995.

You had people that were banned by the government, and you didn't have a tradition of actually calling into a radio station and raising your opinion about a political topic or even a politician or what's happening in the country or any of those things. So that was so it took us a number of years to actually break down those the fear that existed. And the way we did it is to take the radio to the people. So we would take our outside broadcast, have a town hall meeting, and discuss these issues, and people could raise the issues there. Because that's what they were used to in terms of meetings and raise your issues there, but they weren't used to raising it on air through a radio station.

That we slowly moved away. So now people do participate. I think with social media, it's an advantage and a disadvantage because people can abuse the social media, but at at least it it it gives people that comfort they can participate in the station. So I think today, even people will call in, people will WhatsApp, people will do all of that, including sometimes on social, on Facebook. We get a lot of messages on on Messenger, for instance, via so as a station, we offer all the platforms, and people can decide which platform to to to use.

Now, obviously, you're here to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Bush Radio. You had an event back in August, a night of jazz. How was that? And what else can people in the Cape area expect to celebrate this milestone occasion?

So the jazz was great. I can tell you that. It was a highlight. We had five local women because August is also women's month. So we had five local jazz artists that actually performed and it ended on a big bang.

So that was how we had a gala dinner as well, and we have some other activities planned for the rest of the year because our birthday even though officially the birthday was in August, we are having events right through for the next year celebrating the thirtieth. So we have another fundraiser planned later in the year in December. We have a Poikikos competition planned. We have our media kydocracy conference planned, and we have a media conference for journalists and so on planned for next year. So what we're also doing is we're doing a pledge drive for the station because we are nonprofit, so we need to raise all our funds, and we're doing that as well from September till December.

One of them is with Bushrider partnering with I don't know if it's a company or organization called Big Little Productions, where now Bushrider is diving into the digital space of video even though Bushrider has been been skeptical about showing too much video on but now since the world is changing, so now they're in in comparing it with one video and audio, which is a podcast. Even though it's still now on the trial, maybe in future, the whole station will be able to do that. So those are some of the twenty first century ways to, you know, enhance in how the radio is changing even though many people still prefer the old way, listening in the car or home and all that. But we know that since now, access to Internet is easy. So Bushrider is diving into those spaces.

Those are some of the future projects.

I think I think what Kussi is mentioning, it's it's actually part of our we launched this part of our celebration of thirty years. And we're having a six part episode where we're recording local unsigned artists. So it's not only about giving them exposure, but also educating them about the music industry. So we have partners on board that can do that. And each week so it's six artists or groups.

Each week, it's a different one. We have audience participation as well, and they it goes out live on Facebook, and it's broadcasted at on Bush Radio as well, and it's filmed, we produce the podcasts afterwards. So, that's a very exciting project that we're currently busy with, and we hope the six week is the pilot phase. But we hope that after that, after we've done the assessment and so on, we're actually gonna do it, continue with that project. And I can say that in terms of the music and so on, it's different genres.

It's from reggae to jazz to all the other genres. So we ran sort of we did a call where we asked people to participate and selected from that six groups. So that's an exciting project. I think for me, working at Bush Radio for so long, I came as I was an activist when I was 12 years old. I was fighting against the apartheid government.

And for me, people are the important ingredient at Bush Radio community. And I think that's what kept me at Bush Radio because every day is different. You're meeting different people, some old friends, some new people, new friends. You you work with people, and you can see the tangible difference in people as you can, like, see the light bulb goes on sometimes with with trainees, for instance, for new journalism students currently. And in the week that we're training them, this is day three, you can actually see the development and how they grow over that period.

And I think that I find very satisfying.

And on that note, I think that's a good place to end it. People are the main ingredient of Bush Radio, and we thank both of you. Well, really, Kusi is a host, but Kusi was kind of a guest today too. But, Brenda, thank you very much for coming on the show today and discussing thirty years of Bush Radio. Congratulations on this incredible milestone.

And, also, I didn't wanna overshadow Brenda into Bush Radio's information as I know because I want her to come to be the one who explains it. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Alright. You've been listening to the One World Community Radio Show on eighty eight point seven FM WRHU, thirty nine point five FM Bush Radio, the mother of community radio and eighty eight point three WRCT Radio Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh. Thanks so much for listening and we will see you all next time. And to conclude, to celebrate thirty years of Bush Radio and honoring this collaboration, we're going to now play the song that Bush Radio and WHU collaborated on for this show starting all over.

You've been listening to One World Radio, a collaboration between eighty nine point five FM Bush Radio, Cape Town, South Africa, and eighty eight point seven FM WRHU Radio Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York. We thank you for joining us, and look forward to seeing you next week as we celebrate the power of radio in our one world.