Jack Parow’s latest music video is a wonderful tribute to all the workers in South Africa…and instead of using models or actors he features some of the country’s very real working heroes (see below). This is a song that’s for anyone who works to make ends meet, who may hate their job but needs to pay […]

It has always been Richard John Pelwana Maponya’s dream to see Soweto grow its own flourishing economy. Born in Limpopo Province on 24 December 1926, Maponya is a property developer best known for building a business empire despite the restrictions apartheid imposed on black South Africans. He was fiercely determined to see Soweto develop economically. […]

As a 13-year-old Sir Stuart Ntlathi looked at his world and decided he needed to know how it worked. Fourteen years later, his after-school science club owns patents to a battery-operated shoe polisher with changeable colour cartridges, a 14-in-1 microwave combo, and an auto-cooling umbrella. As a 13-year-old he recycled old appliances and developed a […]

Working the chalkboard for over 74 years, watching students blossom and receive good grades, Nontsikelelo Qwelane, at 94, is South Africa’s oldest teacher. Qwelane believes she was born to “impart knowledge” and has dedicated herself to this lifetime vocation. Born in 1920 in Engcobo in the Eastern Cape, she trained as a teacher and started […]

Following Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies’ visit to Hollywood last week, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will be leading a delegation of South African film makers to Los Angeles to engage with the major studios, the minister announced on Tuesday. Briefing reporters in Pretoria, Davies said his visit had sought to strengthen […]

The government will invest billions of rands in South Africa’s transport infrastructure over the next three years in a bid to reduce road deaths and traffic congestion in the country, says Transport Minister Dipuo Peters. Addressing a seminar on road safety at the Southern Sun Hotel in Cape Town on Tuesday, Peters said that commuter […]

A new concept in filmmaking funding emerged a few years ago through crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to independently fund films. South African filmmakers, Susan Scott and Bonné de Bod are using this new development to try fund their documentary film on the rhino poaching. In Afrikaans and for the big screen, ‘STROOP die […]

The challenges of social integration were increasing, and it was essential to update democracy. “We must take on the challenges of the future, not just consolidate our wins.” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet expressed these sentiments in delivering the 12th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, in the City Hall, Cape Town, on Women’s Day – 9 August. […]

On 4 July Americans celebrate their independence, their freedom from the yoke of British colonialism. Even in Las Vegas – a city without clocks or calendars – the residents party in celebration of their freedom from oppression. On that day in 1983 South African David Ross Patient found himself in the desert outside the city. […]

A fusion of African and European cuisine will be a feast for the eye and a temptation for the taste bud at the inaugural Mzansi International Culinary Festival, taking place from 7 to 10 August. It has been planned to celebrate the culinary expertise of female chefs from across the globe – Europe, the Americas, […]

Standing 1.93 metres tall, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a giant of a man whose remarkable life has been chronicled in a number of films, from his childhood to his political awakening, his activism against apartheid and subsequent imprisonment, through to his role as unifier, peacemaker and first democratically elected president of South Africa. The statesman, […]

People have an amazing ability to adapt to their circumstances. The mind buries trauma till it seems like a dream, and the more traumatic the event, the quicker the mind tries to forget and heal. Yet in the spiritual geography of some Cape Town families, a finger of land still looms large in their identity. […]

Frene Ginwala helped build and grow the African National Congress (ANC) in exile and in the first 10 years of the democratic Parliament, when she was the speaker. The 82-year-old was in exile for 31 years, and returned to South Africa in 1990.   Her crucial role and wise leadership have been well-documented: “Dr Frene […]

Here’s another one of those emails – with a compilation of old and new photos from Africa – doing the rounds at the moment…showing that Plato was right when he said necessity is the mother of innovation.

Penny Heyns did not know she had just made history. Standing on the podium at the Atlanta Olympic Games with the gold medal around her neck she was oblivious to the fact that she had won South Africa’s first Olympic gold medal in 44 years. It was 23 July 1996; Heyns had already broken the […]

South African comedian Trevor Noah has announced today that he will be returning to Australia and New Zealand in 2014, much to the delight of many expats who have been begging him to head back after his previous sold-out shows. The South African comedian, who has been embraced by foreigners abroad as well South Africans everywhere, has […]

One of South Africa’s toughest endurance races is the Berg River Canoe Marathon, which starts in mid-July. It’s tough because paddlers sit in their boats for some 60 gruelling kilometres each day of the four-day race, paddling in the middle of winter in a river that is at times blocked by trees and requires paddlers […]

South African playwright Athol Fugard, the creator of anti-apartheid masterpieces such as Blood Knot, The Island and Master Harold … and the Boys, has been named as the first African recipient of a Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award, Japan’s highest honour in the arts. The five winners of the 2014 awards – Fugard in the […]

There is a common misconception that feminists are hysterical, man-hating women who burn their bras. But the reality is far different; in fact, one of the world’s greatest leaders, Nelson Mandela, was a passionate feminist. He believed fervently in the ideology’s core commitment to the social, economic and political equality of women. When Mandela became […]

It is an extraordinary dream come true. Like music to Mandla Maseko’s ears, this part-time DJ will blast off into space, literally. No-one in Maseko’s family has ever stepped outside South Africa, but now the 25-year-old is preparing to rocket into space in 2015. Maseko won the global Axe Apollo Space Academy competition for an […]

TRIBUTE FROM SAPEOPLE: “I happened to be thinking of Nadine Gordimer on the day she passed away. I was sitting in a movie theater in London, watching ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ in which teenage cancer victim Hazel is on a quest to find out from the author of her favourite book what became of the […]

Everyone has a memory bank of images: Nelson Mandela, fist clenched, walking to freedom from Victor Verster Prison; the limp and lifeless body of Hector Pieterson being carried by a fellow pupil; the queues of South Africans waiting to vote in 1994. For sports mad South Africans there is the picture of Mandela handing the […]

Three South African brothers are involved in a really cool venture with a group of young Swiss entrepreneurs who have created a really cool video showcasing just how their African Handmade Shoes are made (with soul!)…and how awesome South Africa and South Africans are. The aim of African Handmade Shoes is to create a bridge between Africa and […]

English has been spoken in South Africa for over 200 years, evolving into a distinct dialect with a vocabulary strongly influenced by indigenous languages. Learn to understand the locals with our comprehensive guide to Mzanzi taal.   English has been spoken in South Africa for over 200 years, at least since the British seized the […]

  Cold Harbour, the new South African crime thriller from the producers of Jerusalema, will have its world première at the Durban International Film Festival on 19 July before opening in cinemas countrywide on 25 July. The film stars Tony Kgoroge as Sizwe, an ambitious policeman from Khayelitsha who uncovers an abalone smuggling scheme while investigating […]