Platfontein residents praise benefits of a radio station in indigenous languages
Residents of Platfontein, near Kimberley in the Northern Cape, rely heavily on radio as their source of news.
Language barriers experienced by this community effectively make the radio station broadcasting in their San language their number one source of information.
As the country commemorates World Radio Day on Sunday, 13 February, residents in this community say radio plays a vital role in their lives, and having X-K FM radio station that broadcasts in their mother tongue helps them preserve their culture.
“Before we got the radio stations, we struggled to listen to radio from other languages like Afrikaans and English, but in 2000, when the radio station was introduced to the !Xun and Khoisan communities in Platfontein, it was for us a very important resource of information which we got the information directly in our indigenous language which is the!Xun and Khwe languages,” says a resident.
World Radio Day | Group Executive for SABC Radio Nada Wotshela discusses the theme and what it means:
South Africans urged to continue supporting radio
Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Thembi Siweya has urged South Africans to continue supporting radio as it remains one of the powerful media platforms.
The world commemorates World Radio Day on Sunday, under the theme ‘Trust and Radio’.
Siweya has acknowledged the role of the medium in attaining freedom.
“We celebrate this day. we want to call on everybody to continue to utilise the platform, to continue to support various media stations to ensure that we attain and maintain the democracy it brings. As we celebrate this day, the government remains committed through various institutions like GCIS and the MDDA to ensure that we empower our community media platforms. We also want to continue to ensure that historically disadvantaged communities get to grow and be on the same level as commercial media,” says Siweya.
