PROFILE FEATURE
A radio presenter of Umhlobo Wenene fm Mafa Bavuma tell us about his career as a radio presenter.
I grow up in a small town that is in between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown which is Alicedale. In my childhood I was one of the most quit person, even now most of the people are still wondering about this character of being funny or making jokes, talkative and laughter in the radio, because when I was growing up I was the kind of person who liked to be alone and kept quiet during the people, playing alone at my home and I was not involved in any sport activity in my community.
I studied in Alicedale at Hendrik Kanise Combined School, but it was starting from sub A to standard 10 by that time, so after that in 2001 I enrolled in journalism at P.E Tech College in Port Elizabeth, which is now known as Nelson Mandela University. In 2005 I graduated in journalism. I started working at TRU fm in 2008 as a news reader. In the same year 2008 there was an opportunity in Umhlobo Wenene fm that needed a producer of current affairs, so I applied for that position. Therefore, I started working in Umhlobo Wenene fm on the 1st of September in the same year 2008 as a producer of current of affairs, but I ended up presenting the current affairs.
In 2009 we were going to the elections in Pretoria and in Cape Town, but I was based in Cape Town and another team was based in Pretoria. In Cape Town I was supposed to be with Mr Bhekwa Lindani, but he could not make it. So, in Cape Town I was given 5 minutes in the windows to present and they were impressed about my way of presenting. When I came back to UMhlobo Wenene they offered me to present (Laphuma Ukhwezi) in current affairs show and I also did the ( Zibuzwa Kuthi) show. In the Breakfast Eyondlayo Ekuseni (BEE) show I got there in a funny way because I entered there to read the headlines but Mr Patco Mafani was still there by that time and after I presented the headlines, he made a funny joke then I laughed. After that they started to ask me to join them in BEE show and then I became a part of a BEE show voluntary, but in 2012 I ended up leaving the BEE show. In 2014 listeners demanded me to come back to the (Breakfast Eyondlayo Ekuseni) BEE show and I came back to be the part of BEE show fulltime until now. I just resigned from the news in the end of May as I wanted to pay my focus on the BEE show, because I was between news and BEE, so now I’m presenting in BEE show fulltime.
Now I’m working as a radio presenter and I just graduated for Honours as a Postgraduate in Xhosa at Nelson Mandela University but for now I have not yet enrolled for the masters, because next year in 2020 I’m also planning to do the masters. For now, I’m working as a presenter at Umhlobo Wenene fm and I also do a lot of gigs such as MC, motivational talks and even (deejaying) sometimes.
Passion inspired me to be a presenter because even in school when I was growing our teacher liked to ask one learner to read the book like novel in front of the class, I was always volunteer myself to read. In my home there was no television, radio was the only media I knew by that time.
I faced challenges when I was trying to achieve my dream of being a presenter because my parents disagreed with me to do the journalism and in high school, I was doing Commercial subjects, so they wanted me to enrol for B.com. People had always convinced me to not enrol for Journalism because there is less salary in Journalism, but I did not listen to them because as I said before that being a presenter was always my passion. I overcame all those challenges by pushing myself and I never gave up because I knew what I wanted in my life. I remember my first job when I was in a community radio where I was earning R1000 per week, sometimes I walked to the workplace because I ran out of money for transport. Sometimes I get there late until the breakfast show guy complained that I am ruining his show and he will report me to the manager because of being late, but I told him my story and he understood, so these are some of the challenges I faced.
In 2018 I published my book “Born For This”, the purpose of writing this book was to encourage children who grew up in the rural areas/ town and who has the same background as my mine, to encourage them to forget about the thoughts of how are they going to make it to the tertiary institution because of their backgrounds or the situation of their homes, because before I go to the tertiary institution my father sold his cow, so that I can be able to study my first year. What encourages me the most is that if you have a dream, do not let your background determines your future and never let the situation of your home be the barrier of your dream.
kwahlelwa 