LISTEN: How the COVID lockdown proved nothing is impossible
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown cost many South Africans their livelihoods but also provided others with an opportunity to prove their worth.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the first lockdown on 23 March 2020, ordering businesses and schools to close and telling South Africans to stay home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
South Africans were entering unchartered territory - living through the first global pandemic in our lifetime.
In the latest instalment of ’The Covid Chronicles,’ the Jacaranda FM news team examines the lockdown’s impact on two members of the student radio community.
The radio careers of Pretty Ngwenya and Kgomotso Monyai have come a long way since those dark days of the pandemic, but the scars are still visible as they recount their efforts to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the lockdown was first announced five years ago, not all radio stations were able to prepare before South Africa was essentially closed down at midnight on March 26, 2020.
The community radio station Voice of Wits (VOW FM) had to learn on the go.
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:
Kgomotso Monyai was fresh out of university when the first hard lockdown was announced.
"As much as we complain about how terrible COVID-19 was - and yes, it was devastating and we lost many people's lives - I think in hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise... particularly for our industry in radio, it highlighted just how crucial our job is,” Monyai recalls.
"... having, access to that information (the daily COVID-19 stats), waking up to the fact that the numbers are rising and you yourself are losing people around you - but you still have to go to work and report and update people and inform them and educate them about this thing was really hard."
The Covid Chronicles: Masks, Thermometers, and ‘My Fellow South Africans’ is an original Jacpod series.
It has been researched, written, produced and presented by the Jacaranda FM News team.
Find the full channel below: