Partners

Vuselela

Vuselela is an interactive, competition-based reality programme that invites South African youth aged 16+ to share their stories in a variety of formats and across a range of media platforms. Its aim is to help young South Africans find their own voices and to provide a platform for them to tell their stories and participate in public dialogue about the issues that affect them.

There are 2 main components to the Vuselela project:

(a) B-ME(dia)-Ys (a series of media education tutorials and story showcase):

Via a series of 50 short interactive media education tutorials which will be delivered for free on Bozza mobile and community television in the 1st quarter of each year of the project, we will teach young people across South Africa how to use their cell phones to create short videos. We will also encourage them to go out and produce their own video stories and submit them to us.

The best mobile video stories produced by our course participants will be shown on community TV stations across South Africa every day for the rest of the year. They will also be uploaded to our Vuselela mobile channel on Bozza, where everyone will be able to view them, vote for the best entries, comment on them and engage interactively with the issues they raise.

Our underlying intention is to understand the realities of South African youth and to getyoung people across the country talking about their problems, challenges and issues, whether they be HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, poverty, unemployment, crime, drug/ alcohol abuse or domestic violence.

(b) B-YR-SLF (a reality TV series and competition to find the Vuselela hero of the year):

In the 3rd quarter of each year of the project, we will select one Vuselela finalist per province. Selection will be based on peer votes as well as on geographical area (with a focus on impoverished rural communities) and the issues covered by entrants.

The provincial finalists will each receive a one-week visit from the Vuselela Youth Crew towards the end of the 3^rd quarter. They will work together with the Vuselela team to tell their stories in a format that will form the basis of a 12-part reality TV show that explores the similarities and differences in different groups of teenagers’ lives. The series will be broadcast on community TV, DStv and Top TV in the 4th quarter of each year of the project (November and December).

Each year, for the duration of the project, the winner of the competition-based TV series will be crowned the Vuselela B-a-HERO of the Year and will win a three-year media bursary from Boston City Campus. There will also be two one-year bursaries for the runners-up, as well as smaller prizes for the other finalists and their schools.

Yebo

What We Do

Ya-Yebo-Yes develops top-class educational content for television.
Television broadcasts are interactive and supported by print and web resources.

With a strong intern programme, Ya-Yebo-Yes is committed to growing promising
South African youth who will have the knowledge and skills to contribute to the
educational multi-media industry.

All educational resources developed by the Ya-Yebo-Yes are:
- Aligned to the South African education curriculum; and
- Designed to assist learners achieve the desired learning
outcomes and assessment standards.

If you’re looking to develop multi-media educational resources Ya-Yebo-Yes has the answers.

Bozza

BOZZA is a Pan-African company with its head office in Cape Town. It has developed a mobile application similar to MXit but geared more to audio-visual downloads rather than just chat facilities. This enables it to hyper-compress data in a way that retains its quality but makes it possible for end-users to download up to 5 minutes of video content at virtually no cost. Focused on contextually relevant, made-for-mobile content, Bozza enables young people across Africa to share life together. Bozza can be accessed via the 25-30 most popular handsets in SA (i.e. it is not restricted to smart phones). The first phase of its rollout takes place in October 2011, with the launch of 25 mobile channels (of which Vuselela is one) in its first year of operation.

The European Journalism Centre

THE EUROPEAN JOURNALISM CENTRE (EJC) is a Netherlands-based independent, international non-profit media-development institute that is funding the Vuselela project over a period of 3½ years (June 2011 – December 2014). It is dedicated to the highest standards in journalism, primarily through the further training of journalists and media professionals. Since 1992, and building on its extensive international network, the EJC operates as a facilitator and partner in a wide variety of training projects at the global level.

The main aims of the EJC are to:

Promote high quality journalism through professional training;
Provide a forum for discussion, debate and exchanges of views and experience for journalists and other media professionals;
Support, through training and networking, high standards of journalism in developing countries;
Promote further journalism training that answers the needs of the media industry;
Monitor and reflect, via research, surveys and publications, on the present and future challenges facing the media; and
Create and support networks among media professionals within Europe and with other parts of the world.

Community TV

Five COMMUNITY TV stations (Soweto TV, CTV, Tshwane TV, 1KZN & Mandela Bay TV) all broadcast the EISH-Team’s SwtchdON and STUDY MATE educational series from 16h00 -17h00, Mondays to Fridays, and have agreed that we can include the Vuselela media lessons as inserts in the show, as well as showcase examples of young people’s mobile video stories. These programmes also go out on DSTV and Top TV.