NIGHT FALL

Guest on the line: Corna Olivier -Registered counsellor and lecturer at Stadio.(A private higher educational institute)

Social conversations: How to reduce anxiety while waiting for exam results?

 Occupying the space between finishing your exam and waiting for your grades to get released can feel like you’re reading a suspenseful Gothic novel...

...particularly when you aren’t very sure about how you did.

You might feel like something uncanny is skulking in the distance, ever so present and closing in. Is this a rendition of Frankenstein, but where Frankenstein’s monster is the grade release? Sadly, you don’t get to glimpse its true form yet (and maybe for a while).

This sensation of suspense can grow like a flower in a baleful nosegay; you aren’t sure if you want to see your grade...or stay in this limbo stage of not knowing.

Here’s how to free yourself from the heavy anxiety coiled about you—and keep your sense of dread at bay as you wait.

Guest 1 on the line: Uyanda Maboea, Candidate Attorney at Adams & Adams

Legal conversations: Unnecessary hindrance to parenthood.

South Africa protects the rights of minorities or previously marginalised groups through legislative and constitutional means. The right to equality is constitutionally entrenched. Section 294 of the Children’s Act 38 of 2005[1] (hereinafter referred to as “the Act”) prevents persons who are infertile and unable to donate gametes for the purpose of a surrogacy agreement, from entering into said agreement. A genetic link to at least one of the commissioning parents is a requirement for a valid surrogacy agreement. A brief explanation of the most recent decision in this area of law, being the case of AB and Another v Minister of Social Development,[2]  follows. What are the repercussions that follow the apex court’s decision in AB? Do prospective parents in surrogacy agreements, who are unable to have a child of their own and unable to contribute genetically, have any remedies?

An analysis of section 294

This section provides for a valid surrogacy agreement in the following instances: ie) Both commissioning parents provide their gametes; ii) If one of the commissioning parents is unable, for any medical or biological reasons, to provide a gamete, then the other commissioning parent needs to provide a gamete; iii) If the commissioning parent is a single person, they must provide their own gamete.

Guest 1 on the line: Dr Thomas Brennan, founder and CEO of Franc: (Franc – an award-winning app that helps South Africans save)

For this reason, Franc, an award-winning app that helps South Africans save, invest and learn about investments, has developed child accounts that parents can link to their own account. It takes a few clicks to open an account and then a few seconds more to open a linked child profile (all you need is a birth certificate). To ensure that no one is tempted to access this money, it’s also possible to lock the account for a specific time.

Says Dr Thomas Brennan, founder and CEO of Franc: “Christmas is a good time to give a meaningful gift. Instead of yet another silly toy, give the gift of compound interest by starting to save and invest early for your kids. When their next birthday comes around, and you get queries about what to give your child, you can let grannies, uncles and friends pay a small gift into the account. They simply use the child’s reference when depositing.”

“The account can be funded with a stop order, once-off deposits via EFT or instant EFT or even directly from the parent’s own Franc account. Let your child see the benefits of long-term savings by opening an investment account.”

There are no minimum investment amounts and you can withdraw your money anytime without penalties. The fees are low and transparent.  It’s easy to check how the investment is doing on the app.

Guest on the line: Thato Molope- co-founder and director of operations at Cuplings Foundation

This year the foundation aims to raise more than R 7 million to fund the distribution of 25 000 reusable soft silicone menstrual cups that collect, rather than absorb, periods. And Abdulla wants to achieve this target by Christmas. She said: “Each cup has a lifespan of ten years and eliminates the dependency that younger women and girls have on feminine hygiene products.”

This, she added, was of particular benefit to less fortunate individuals who are dependent on various ‘pad programmes’ that distribute disposable products to communities, sometimes inconsistently. Abdulla added: “It’s washable, easily wearable and saves thousands of Rand for users who presently purchase tampons or pads every month. The value to people who cannot afford to buy hygiene products, is immense.”

Please see below questions:

1. What are the challenges young South African women seem to face, continually, when it comes to their menstral cycles?
2. A menstrual cup, what are the benefits versus tampons or pads, for example? (environmental, physical etc)
3. You want to raise a huge chunk of money this year to provide thousands of young women / girls with menstrual cups.....
4. Why is menstrual care important to society - and how does it or could it impact an individual's future?
5. How can anyone get involved - even beyond the campaign?

Guest on the line: Dr Mpumelelo Ncube -HoD & Senior Lecturer Dept. of Social Work University of the Free State

Known to many as a “bride-price” or bride-worth” and to some extent as a “down payment” or “dowry” but in the African culture, it is a ritual that brings two families together.

According to the English usage ‘dowry’ is the gift of money, goods or both, offered by the bride or bride’s family towards establishment of her household, whereas a bride-price is a marriage payment made by a prospective husband or more often, by his family to the family of the bride.

As a link between two families, lobola negotiation is a tradition that was implemented in the old days where a man pays the family of his fiancé for her hand in marriage. Although it is practised differently today, in historical times a man would pay much more for a virgin and less for a woman who had a child out of wedlock.

Today, prices are set according to how well-mannered and educated the bride-to-be is. The more educated she is, the more expensive the lobola will be. Other factors also include the relative wealth and status of the family the prospective groom wishes to marry into, i.e. a young woman from a royal family would be much pricier than that of an ordinary family who may be known as “commoners”.

However, it should be noted royal lobola and marriage is much more complicated and these are often pre-arranged, to the exclusion of choice from either groom or bride. Traditionally, lobola usually amounted to eight heads of cattle, but today the value of each cattle head forms part of the overall negotiation.

Tshepang Sesoane. A 3rd year student at UNISA studying B.Ed in senior phase majoring in Mathematics and Physics. A gay being who identifies as being non binary and gender fluid. Whether you say he or she as long as it comes from a genuine place, it's all good with them.

1. Differences between Dominance Submissions
2. Explain the different roles, from the everyday lifestyle to the bedroom.
3. Toys or no toys and why.
4. Pleasure through pleasing others
5. Cuckholding
6. Fire and wax play- skin sensations
7. Group sex safety tips
8. The different oral tricks
9. The importance of queer safe spaces

1st Panellist: 

Guest 1 on the line: Dr. Sello Galane - a musicologist, composer, educationist and music performer 

Sello Galane is a vocalist and percussionist extraordinaire who was born in 1966 into a musical family. His father, Maeke, was a Kiba music and dance leader (malokwane) and his mother, Moaki, was a singer in the Lutheran Church. Sello grew up in Leboneng, Hammanskraal where he completed his elementary schooling. He received tertiary education at the University of Cape Town where he met other musicians like Judith Sephuma, Selaelo Selota and Magalane Phosokho, with whom he experimented in fusing kiba music into jazz.

Career

After graduation in 1991, they went separate ways to pursue solo careers; Galane reversed the experiment by fusing jazz and pop into kiba to a point where the repertoire grew beyond the confines of a single tribal traditional music genre. He named it Free-Kiba; the tradition of music making and cultural communication of the Amandebele-a-Moletlane, the BaPedi akin to the Venda Tshikona. Galane relocated to his father‟s birth place, Ga-Mashashane in Limpopo province, where he met ordinary village Kiba performers who schooled him in the craft. Galane plays a family of drums: sekgokolo (father drum), kgalapedi (mother drum) and matikwane (twin children).

Guest on line: Mathawe Matsapola -Seasoned Journalist & Editor/Entrepreneur/Certified Life Coach and COMENSA member/ Speaker

It’s that time of year again! Between office parties and frosted sweets, the holidays are an awesome time to reconnect with old friends while getting to know new ones. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Once you add tempting sales and gifts (for literally everyone you know) the holidays can feel overwhelming, especially if you have a budget conscious S.O. Financial strain is a leading cause of tension in relationships – and it’s no surprise that money and stress go hand in hand during this time of year.

According to a survey by SunTrust Bank, 35% of all respondents experiencing tension in their relationship said that money was the primary cause and about 47% of the respondents claimed their partner had different saving and spending habits than they did. Don’t want to be a statistic? Great! It may be time to pull together a financial plan that keeps you and your sweetie’s spending on track.

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Guest on the line: Dr Mpumelelo Ncube -HoD & Senior Lecturer Dept. of Social Work University of the Free State

- Escalation of the number of deaths from pit bulls? Is this a new phenomenon?

- What impact does it have on survivors?

- What impact does it have on secondary victims & who are secondary victims?

It’s that time of year again! Between office parties and frosted sweets, the holidays are an awesome time to reconnect with old friends while getting to know new ones. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Once you add tempting sales and gifts (for literally everyone you know) the holidays can feel overwhelming, especially if you have a budget conscious S.O. Financial strain is a leading cause of tension in relationships – and it’s no surprise that money and stress go hand in hand during this time of year.

According to a survey by SunTrust Bank, 35% of all respondents experiencing tension in their relationship said that money was the primary cause and about 47% of the respondents claimed their partner had different saving and spending habits than they did. Don’t want to be a statistic? Great! It may be time to pull together a financial plan that keeps you and your sweetie’s spending on track.

Guest 1 on the line: Tswelopele Makoe is MA (Ethics) student at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice at UWC.

The 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children Campaign – an annual initiative from the end of November to mid-December – need no longer be the only period during which this pertinent issue is put under a microscope.

This is a widespread societal disease that ought to be addressed both in key national discourse as well as constantly among the general populace. Femicide and violence against children have been consistent issues in our country’s contemporary context for too long. Not only has this devastating phenomenon been unpacked, researched and campaigned against, but was such a huge societal headache in South Africa that it was wrestled with almost equal vigour as the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.