The View Point

At many underprivileged schools throughout the country, over 9 million learners are supplied with lunch through the National School Feeding Programme, and in the frightening majority of these cases, this is the only substantial meal these children receive all day. Having worked with schools in youth marketing through his agency, Superiate, Brad Stern woke up on Monday the 16th of March – the day following the president’s address – wondering what might happen to the learners who rely on the one meal they receive at school. Brad decided that the only course of action to stop thousands of children from going hungry was to make a plan of his own - Cans With Purpose.
Cans With Purposes aims to generate funds and donations in order to buy canned food to help curb the imminent hunger among underprivileged South African learners. The initiative gained traction in a matter of hours, raising an unprecedented R 25 000 in under two days.

GUEST: Mr Brad Stern - CEO of Superiate

Africa is the most-exposed region to the adverse effects of climate change despite contributing the least to global warming. The region is already disproportionately feeling the impacts related to a changing climate. Devastating cyclones affected 3 million people in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe in the spring of 2018. But even with all these adversities, the fossil fuels business, particularly coal, continues to grow at an impressive rate throughout Africa. New coal-fired plants are being projected from South Africa to Senegal, from Kenya to Mozambique, via the DRC and Ivory Coast.
How can Africa mitigate the impact of climate change? Why are we the hardest hit, yet we contribute less to the degradation of the climate?

GUESTS: Prof Oluwatoyin Adejonwo - Environmental Law Professor and lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos

Guest: Ms Sivuyisiwe Mapapu - Environmental Science Graduate from UCT

The homeless are the most vulnerable to the coronavirus which spreads primarily through respiratory droplets coughed or sneezed from an infected person. Homeless people who mostly survive on selling recycling materials, collecting scrap and eating from the dustbins are at a risk of contracting coronavirus by touching dirty tissues from the dustbins.
Furthermore, in order to prevent this virus from spreading people should wash their hands with soap or sanitiser regularly and for homeless people this will be impossible as they cannot afford these materials. Have we thought about how were going to help homeless people deal with this global?

GUEST: Illa Thompson - Piblicist for the Denis Hurley Centre

The whole world is obsessed with COVID-19, but in Africa we have been slow to be affected. Whilst our actions until now have been sufficient, the number of cases is increasing and so should our efforts. We have the 'advantage' of having seen exactly what we should be doing and when, by studying the actions of other countries, and the growing epidemiological and biomedical evidence base.
We’re in conversation with PHACT (Public Health Action Team), a coalition of South African Public Health Professionals, has and they have identified urgent steps government needs to take to push back against the exponentially increasing SARS-CoV-2 infections in South Africa. One mobilisation strategy has been an online petition, listing all the recommended actions, which has garnered nearly 10 000 signatures in the first 24 hours:

GUEST : Dr Atiya Mosam – Co-founder of PHACT (Public Health Action Team)

According to a paper by the Institute of Race Relations, the appointment of an independent water regulator is essential if South Africa is to overcome its perpetual water crisis. Entitled "Thirsty Land", the paper notes that one of the key components of success in ensuring adequate water supplies is high-quality regulation. Regulation should be the responsibility of an autonomous government agency run by technocrats rather than politicians. The paper also notes that the South African government needs no encouragement to introduce controls, and it points out that an independent regulator would have to be free of corruption.

GUEST : Terrence Corrigan - Project Manager at the Institute for Race Relation

The Strategic Dialogue Group (SDG) and the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) held a dialogue session which emphasised a need to move public discourse towards practical solutions and actions that can rescue state owned entities (SOEs). SDG and PARI entered into a collaborative relationship aimed at improving public discourse about how to address South Africa’s poverty and inequality in the manner that current challenges are defined and addressed. Dialogue sessions such as this one are intended to guide the development of research papers, advocacy, submissions to strategic bodies and engagements in public platforms.

GUEST : Dr Sihle Moon - Spokesperson for the Strategic Dialogue Group ]

As South Africans settle into the routine and inconvenience of load shedding and planning their activities around shifting electricity supply, it is businesses that are taking the biggest hit through the loss of operational capabilities, productivity, and profitability. The electricity shortfall makes it crucial for organisations to reconsider their power supply systems. There is no silver bullet to solving this challenge -businesses need to take a holistic approach when looking at securing their power supply. Nick Oosthuizen, Managing Director at Inframid and consultant in energy efficiency, takes us through five essential aspects to consider when making a plan for alternative power supply for your business.

Guest: Nick Oosthuizen - Managing Director at Inframid

We’re in conversation with Busiswa Lutshaba, an emerging entrepreneur that lives in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. She's the first social entrepreneur of the Unboxed Incubator Programme (developed and run by SoapboxSA - social design agency).
Busiswa works with emerging local entrepreneurs, providing them with essential communication services and to help them bridge the gap with corporates and the government. Unboxed wants to help raise funds to unpack Busiswa's growth potential and the funds will be directed towards financial business needs and a strategic development plan for her business.

Guest: Busiswa Lutshaba - Delegate of the Soapbox programme AND Founder of BluSpace Communications

Youth Unemployment has been prioritized by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his State of the Nation Address, with the launch of the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention (PYEI) programme. The President also admitted that Government alone cannot solve the crisis, and called on social compacts to work together to shift gears on youth unemployment. However, even though young people face this crisis every single day, they’re seldom included in the conversations on the topic; their ideas and views often lie in the periphery of the discussions.

Capital’s Project Lead Kristal Duncan-Williams looks at the space young people should hold to truly help shape a South Africa in which we all can thrive.

Kristal Duncan-Williams - Youth Capital’s Project Lead at the DG Murray Trust

High-ranking officials in the Department of Correctional Services and secretaries of parole boards have been summoned to an urgent meeting with Justice Minister Ronald Lamola to address the flaws of the parole system.
This follows cases of parolees allegedly committing heinous crimes in the Western Cape which include the raping and killing of children. In the past few weeks, the accused arrested in connection with the murders of Tazne van Wyk in Cape Town and Reagan Gertse in Tulbagh were both on parole.
The two-day meeting, which ends this evening, reviewed parole granted in the last financial year in the Western Cape and would evaluate whether there had been any failure to comply with the processes and procedures of the Correctional Services Act.

Guest: Chrispin Phiri - Spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice and Correctional