Did You Know???

We have all seen and heard of the headlines about Marikana, Oscar Pistorious, Zwelinzima Vavi - just to name a few- right? These stories made the rounds in every newspaper in the country and were the trending topics on our social networks. These were the "big" stories that everyone had a comment on, because they were the ones that set the agenda at that particular time. But what about those other really important stories that we never got to pay attention to because they fell in the shadows...?

I had a conversation with a friend of mine a while back and she told me that she didn't know anything about the Medupi Power Station, that is currently under construction in Limpopo, until someone else mentioned it to her. Honestly, that was the first I had heard of it too. Oh and by the way, this power station is a great investment into the country’s future.
 
I then realised that we are very ignorant young people. The only reason why I was pushed to start watching the news was because of the news quizzes we get in media studies class, otherwise, I just couldn't be bothered - I know this will resonate with many of my classmates.

How many of us knew about the two new universities that are being established in Mpumalanga (University of Mpumalanga) and the Northern Cape (Sol Plaatje University). We would rather spend hours on Twitter going through the list of the most recent "open letter" to one of our local celebrities, instead of catching up on current affairs on News24.

Solution
Here are a couple of tips to help us intergrate news reading into our daily social network lives:

• Follow newspapers and news channels on Twitter e.g @eNCAnews, @TimesLIVE and @SundayTimesZA
• Click on the links they tweet
• Don't just read up on stories you've already heard
• Have an open mind
• Search for intersting topics in the news on platfroms such as Google

Girl Power!

So August is coming to an end and what have we learnt from it really? That "we can do it all too"? Yes, I'm going to jump on that Womans Month wagon too, but with a twist. I am all for the empowerment and liberation of women and  very proud to be a young woman living in SA today. Helen Joseph, Bertha Mashaba and the rest of the group of women who marched on that day, 9 August 1956 had a particular purpose in mind: the freedom of women. (SA History) Personally, I think the initial purpose of this day is slowly being a day of women trying to prove the point that they can do what men can do. The picture on the left for example, it is all musculine and manly. Is this what the empowerment of women means? I am not arguing that we cannot do what the opposite sex can when we put our minds to it, but let that not be the feul to our fire, let that not be the reason why we want to be successful and be CEOs in big compaies. Rather let our success be a tesimony of what we are capble of, despite of our history.

The video below shows the brief history of this important day and the women behind it.