Thingo Media (PTy) Ltd is a private company that organize events, Shoot videos for different events.

It is under directorate leadership of Xolani Richard Jama with the purpose to create a platform that will sweep youth off the street, with the idea to open a platform for youth to battle their talent, skills, visions and mission to success.

The majority of South African youth are unemployed and a number of which are skilled youth who are graduates and a number of these youth are also without skills, some unemployable.

I was reading a newspaper the other day and the headlines went “Telkom has doubled CEO remunerations” and in a different story the headline went “Telkom want to let go 20 percent of their staff”. This become an alert that all the jobs we running towards, is a matter of time before we are all let go and I hope all youth reads newspapers and see on how the jobs are lost. If the stigma of finding jobs can be changed into creating jobs we will be much better as a country than as individuals

It is with noting that youth is highly affected mostly by the surrounding, and often the choices are influenced by their background. One child can escape home without an inspiration or a reason to dream big, but it is bound to find it in the community, at school, in friends, strangers and even in the crazy guy on the street. Truth is, we are born capable of dreaming but the choice we make on our way to adult hood affect our future and they can be indefinite.

A blunt example is that of two kids at school, when it time for English or whatever subject, one kid would skip that class and go join buddies in the toilet or back of school classes or skip the school through fence cut at the backyard of the school and stand at the corner of the supermarket and start smoking. This becomes a habit and the next thing you are in it for good and by the time you open your eyes the year is gone. And for the fact that there is no one checking your books at home you feel safe when you have failed your subjects…. But we all know most of us youth are from families that mostly go all year round without having paid all the school fees and if we come back home and say the result are not out, our parents will not investigate because they are busy trying to help make a living within the household. By the time you realise you have learnt how to make money yourself so you can buy a smoke and the next thing you skipping the whole day at school. You are now passed your school time and at home have noticed you no longer go to school but hey you can talk for yourself, so you win with back-talking but your family end up saying “we tried to give you bread for your future”. But the truth is is…. Yes they did try!!!

Whereas the other kid did not skip the class instead moved closer to the smartest person in the class and became friends with, come back home all the time having done all the works needed for the following day and mostly at times would come early in the morning and ask the smart kid to help and the next thing you see the year is gone and the kid is doing wonders at school.

These two kids from the same family but are bound to make choices differently and are to fight differently. One can judge families, friends, community for that matter but it all depends on the personal choices we take today that can affect us tomorrow. Another blunt example would be a child that has made a choice to engage in sex at an early stage and got pregnant… we all been told about the dangers of unprotected sex….. There’re chances of pregnancy, HIV, STI’s and STD’s but went on and made that choice. The next thing missing school having to raise the baby and by the time she open her eyes the baby father is gone... Where ever we go there are lessons to learn from e.g. more than 80 percent of young mothers that we know, are not with the (1^st child) baby father.

You can still hang with people who smoke and escape as a none-smoker but the choice is picking up that cigarettes and start puffing, it picking up that glass with liquor and start drinking and the worst of all is replying to that craving feeling that makes you do it over and over again.

I have seen it happening to youth and every day you see youth in high schools escaping from their brighter future choosing endless suffering and needing. I have seen youth in township smoking and drinking their future away, and I have seen us settle for less. I have spoken to one of my friends whose dream is to live in a fancy one room at his home backyard “I want to make this room be the best in the neighborhood and bazongivuma (meaning they will salute me)”. The majority of the youth are chasing the employers to give jobs and we are so focus to that we do not see any other options.

Have spoken to a number of youth I met along the way entering an entrepreneurial department and the are all tired of living with just enough, some they tired of waiting for the jobs to come and some are tired of following an employer and they want to make their own dreams of successful businesses a reality and I said “yes”. And maybe there should be a subject of entrepreneurship in high schools because whether you want to be a model or an engineer you have that dream of starting your own business and that is exactly what South Africa needs at the moment…. Businesses that will uplift this economy.

I grew up listening to the saying that the richest place on earth is the grave yard…. And it recently sank into my mind when I heard of a passing of one of my University friend because of asthma and I thought to myself his grave is the richest soil on earth because he never stopped dreaming and his plan were practical heading to changing lives of many. So many people had dreams that were never implemented into reality, some had started to implement and to some they were in ripe stage and the holders of those dreams had to pass away. And we still have a chance to make changes and it start with the choices we make today….

Thingo Media is proud to be the host organizer of Miss KwaZulu Natal High Schools Pageant that will be held annually. This opportunity present the opportunity to groom young talents that want to make it in fashion and modeling career. Contestants are advised on how to sustain themselves to make it in the future and outside high schools.

Township King and Queen Pageant to be held on the 05^th of December 2015 at the City Centre and this pageant offers great opportunity to youth of becoming brand ambassadors, great career experience and an opportunity to become part the next life changing event for township youth.