We recently came across an element from Business Days’ new campaign titled “understand your country – or lose it”, a series of videos and content dealing with poverty and inequality in South Africa, all with the underlying tone of a less than adequate government. This campaign aims to open South African’s eyes to major issues in our country.
Such a strong and important message needs to be delivered to people in a relatable way. It needs to be simple yet powerful, and this video and its message is exactly that. This short video clip posted by Business Day is a powerful message that provokes peoples’ thoughts and gets them really thinking about major issues our country faces.
This short video really puts these major issues into context in a captivating, emotional and effective way. We wanted to understand this message in more depth and delve into this campaign to find out what the real meaning behind it is… Here’s to not holding back.
In order to understand the sheer magnitude of this situation as described in the first episode of the campaign it was necessary to do some research and look at several factors that could lead to such distortions in a developing country. So we grabbed some information from the South African Basic Education Department website, which didn’t surprise us but needed to be put in to context to better understand why starving these kids from basic education is a crime against humanity. In many of these cases parental economic status, education and opportunities affect the learning abilities of learners and successful schooling in the current education system.
Having said this, these kids, the future of South Africa, rely solely on the support of the government to give them a platform to have the chance to become successful. What they choose to do with their education is another matter not related to this, but there is a tendency for education to give people the opportunity to make those right choices.
Robbing innocent kids of their right to basic education and thus a chance for equal access to participate in viable economic activity whilst the powers that be continue to feed their habits of greed and extortion, is by far the most prevalent crime in South Africa, and for us South Africans to turn a blind eye possibly implicates us in this crime.
This is not a pessimistic view of the situation; we can assume that the real world is not what people envision on a piece of paper. There will always be chancers and thieves that use their power to feed their greed, but to stand back and watch the livelihoods of young South Africans is just too scary to ignore. To think that these kids don’t really understand the magnitude of the situation and why they can’t learn in a stimulating environment is an indignity.
If we are willing to let it be, we need to come to terms with an increase in poverty and inequality, that promptly leads to crime and unrest in a nation. We think more effort should be spent investing in our future rather than trying to create redundant jobs as a quick fix, because of the lack of education. Growth takes time, and as a nation we should feel compelled to want to be involved in creating the opportunity for others to have a chance at success.
We firmly believe that this campaign has taken the initiative to stand up and be the first of many to take action and not only point the finger at the greed and extortion that takes place in our nation.
Well done Business Day on having the courage to do so.
This week’s Red & Yellow student reviewers
My name is Simon Miszewski. I’m currently doing my post-grad in Marketing, Advertising and Communications at the Red&Yellow School of advertising. I enjoy writing these articles as it gives me a platform to express how I feel about certain relevant issues in South Africa and the world. It’s your view on how you perceive the topic at hand. To have that opportunity is great!
I’m Steph Van Rensburg; I’m a public relations graduate and currently a post-grad student at the Red&Yellow School of Advertising studying the Marketing, Advertising and Communications course. I’m a big personality and am not afraid to share my opinions. So here I go.
