Honest Conversation.
A Pathway to Peace.
When we take time to truly understand others – beyond the clothes, manners, speech, financial status, education or any of the yardsticks we use to measure individual worth and define ourselves – then we have a chance to discover our common humanity and find ways to coexist peacefully.
Join our free, non-political conversations on the first Sunday of each month from 14h00 to 16h00. These events foster meaningful interactions and bolster local township economies, with up to 75% of advertising revenue flowing directly into each participating community.
South African Conversations touches on issues that most South Africans are afraid to talk about. It gives people a reality check on what’s truly happening here. It creates a platform for people who are not afraid to talk about sensitive issues. It promotes tolerance and equality amongst human beings, regardless of who they are, what they are and where they’re from.
– Alvin Motsisi
It is amazing to see a group of people giving individuals the platform to discuss issues relating to them and the nation at wide and then sharing the money with them.
– Mbasa Tsetsana
South African Conversations makes all of us the same. Black people and white people and people who are nobody and important people.
– Ngqiliyomzi
I really like that it is a platform for people to share their experiences and thoughts.
– Innocent Ndlovu
Join the Conversation. It is free.
Start a Conversation
Sign up for information on how to start this entrepreneurial event in your community.
Form a Team
To start an income-generating Conversation in your community.
Attend a Conversation
Sign up to be notified when a conversation is going to take place in your community.
Provide a Venue
Make a safe space available for conversations in your community.
Advertise
Reach new audiences and bring revenue into township, inner-city & rural economies.
How it All Started Then. A Message from the Founder
Community Conversations started as a way to explore the challenges faced by low-income communities, ensuring that our magazine content was informed by the lived experiences of the people we write about. With the help of friends in Soweto, we’d organise informal gatherings to discuss pressing issues like youth unemployment, teen pregnancies, disability, hunger and food insecurity. I’d bring food and together we’d explore solutions.
These conversations were eye-opening and humbling, and changed me from being a condescending do-gooder to ‘them’: ‘the poor,’ ‘the homeless’ and ‘the historically disadvantaged’ to seeing PEOPLE who are poor, PEOPLE who are homeless, PEOPLE who are marginalised because of the way our country works – PEOPLE who are just like me and you, needing access to opportunities, information and work. I also saw how hungry poor people are for meaningful engagement and for a chance to be heard.
The following, roughly transcribed comment, is from a young participant during a conversation where we discussed the problems faced by young people, after he embarrassedly admitted that he’d been in jail:
“Most whites don’t know about jail, but it is something that every black person knows about. Either we’ve been there ourselves or we have family who’ve been there or we know someone who has been there or is still there. People should talk about jail … white people should learn what is happening because it affects the children, the families. They should know what it is doing to our society. It’s not just about people being ‘bad’. When people are hungry and don’t have money and don’t know what else to do, stealing is something real. It would be better to help people than to shut them up in jail.”
Affluent people need to hear these things. By attending our Community Conversations they can gain a deeper understanding of the challenges facing marginalised communities, learn to be part of the solution and, through their free attendance, help generate valuable advertising revenue of which up to 75% flows directly to the participating community.
