Wakkerstroom through her youth will rise

Publicity, publicity and more publicity

[1] Someone once said doing business without advertising was like winking at a girl in the dark - no one can see you and only you know what you are doing. The Chair would believe that it was that sentiment that led to UBPA (yes UBPA, we know that many think we are dead and buried not appreciating the work we do behind the scenes where avenues to frustrate us and hinder our progress are narrowed) forming and mandating certain people with a task of just getting us exposure there. Those individuals were not constrained in any way they could have used any medium possible and available to them only if they got us exposure - we did not want to wink at girls in the dark.
[2] Those who did not know and are interested in knowing UThaka Sec. was at Wits and UJ for this years open day. This follows the serious lobbying the SG and this Chair did to the SGB. We admit lobbying the SGB felt more painful than any visit to a dentist.
[3] A perfect symptom of Wakkerstroom mentality even the SGB just like UBPA finds it difficult to meet up for meetings, and even more hard to heed clarion call to unite for the future of their children.
[4] We nonetheless met the Chair of the SGB after some serious convincing on our part to get to meet with her, but clearly like many people she just did not get our brief irrespective of how hard we triedd to explain it to her. We even shared with her some documentations.
[5] In the nut shell, or should one say amongst other things, our visit to her pertained getting the school to come for another open day trip this time to Wits. She was not enthusiastic about it at all, simply because she did not understand the bigger picture. So we left her with that indecision hanging over our heads.
[6] But then something else happened. The SG was seen in his graduation regalia on a local newspaper, the students themselves we are told by their LO teacher demanded to go for a visit to these tertiary institutions mentioned in the paper.
[7] Its amazing what positive and inspiring publicity can do for an organisation like UBPA, an organisation that seeks to give hope and provide the youth with the necessary information to know what is out there and what is possible.
[8] If Bongani can graduate say the parents back at home, why can't my son or daughter and as such they are now even more willing to open their wallets for the son and/or daughter to board the bus to Wits and UJ. That is exactly what we have always wanted.
[9] The conversation we had with the LO teacher revealed that perhaps next time the trip should be to Tukkies. They are already think far and that is good, but the challenge for us is what must we do in the interim by way of publicity, so to ensure that we do not lose the momentum generated now?
[10] The T/shirts we decided on, properly designed and packaged could add impetus of a different kind in our campaign for UBPA and the total emancipation of our young people back at home; only if everybody was as passionate as the rest of us.
[11] The Chair is still in the process of getting sponsorships and thus far has been turned down by Coca-cola, Vodacom and the Citizen. All of them have not said the pitch and the vision of UBPA is bad in law or economics, but financial times do not allow them to finance which is all well and good.
[12] One day UBPA will get where it wanted to go when it was started. Wakkerstroom will rise and UBPA will lead that rise.

Thulani Nkosi
Chairperson and Co-head Education Cluster at UBPA, 2010