Grahamstown excited about 2010 events

by Teboho Senthebane, Nadine Tchaptchet, Christophe Assogba, Edouard Tamba and Moagisi Letlhaku

To many people in South Africa, and around the world, 2010 represents the FIFA World Cup coming to Africa. In the small sleepy town of Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, June and July 2010 will be bring a buzz of activity that will coincide with the soccer excitement.

In 2010 Grahamstown will host three exciting international events, namelyt he annual National Arts Festival, 14^th annual Highway Africa conference and the second ever World Journalism Educators Congress (WJEC), which will be the first time it is hosted in Africa.

Nadine Tchaptchet,  Edouard Tamba and Chistophe Assogba went around the streets to ask the town’s people what they hope the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the other events will bring to Grahamstown, and how they are preparing for these events.

Makana Municipality ready for events

Grahamstown is one of the only two cities in the Eastern Cape which FIFA has accredited free public viewing areas. The municipality is beefing up on security, transport and accommodation for the many people expected to show up.

The Makana municipality’s spokesperson, Thandy Matebese, says they are building up hype and raising awareness through workshops and coaching clinics. Speaking about accommodation, Matebese pointed out that private schools and Rhodes University students will all be on holiday so their rooms will be used to accommodate participants and tourists, as happens every year during the arts festival and Highway Africa conference.

Thandy Matebese, is optimistic that tourists are sure to spend money in town.  Although  all this activity will bring excitement to the town, Grahamstown’s unpreditable and chilly winter weather presents a challenge. The idea behind public viewign areas is to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. These areas, he promises will not only save residents’ travelling costs but bring lots of fun.

 

The events in brief:

National Arts Festival. Date:  20 June to 4 July 2010. Theme: “15 days of amazing!”.

Next year’s festival will be extend from the usual 10 days to 15 days and will be heavily promoted in Port Elizabeth where some of the football games are scheduled to take place. World Cup tourists will be able to visit experience the festivals in Grahamstown, which is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes the World Cup host city Port Elizabeth.

Highway Africa Director: Chris Kabwato

14th Highway Africa conference. Date: 5-7 July 2010. Theme:  African Voices in the Global Media Space.

The annual Highway Africa conference is the largest gathering of African journalists and editors in the world. In 2008, the conference was attended by a record 735 delegates.

 

WJEC Convenor Professor Fackson Banda.

2nd World Journalism Educators Conference. Date: 5-7 July 2010. Theme: Journalism in an age of radical change.

The Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies successfully bidded to host this international conference which will be the second conference of its kind and the first in Africa.

Upskilling the youth

Today is day 3 of the ICT Journalism Workshop – Using New Media Tools in Journalism and Media, a training initiative by the Department of Communication in partnership with Highway Africa , and participants are getting more and more excited by the technology, especially those who virgins to the new media tools.

This is me!

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Moagisi, also popularly (and irritatingly) known as Mo. I’m a petit young South Africa with a passion for words, music, love and life in general because I’d have too many things to list. I will be blogging here about media, music, books, politics (at times), and just about everything that has to do with being human and being, me.

So, this is only the beginning and more is still to come. As the cliché goes, watch this space.