All Our Episodes
In this episode, we hear from the amazing Joni Brenner, an artist helping a cooperative of women in Zimbabwe to produce beads that are not just beautiful necklaces but also an enterprise that sustains the livelihoods of women and their families. Joni shares how it all began with a “happy accident,” which led to collaborations…
This episode of This Way Up features Carol Dyanti, founder of Uzima, an organisation working in Ezimbuzini, an informal settlement on the edge of Soweto. Carol describes how she was introduced to the community and built trust with the indunas (leaders) and residents after being called in following the death of a teenager’s newborn and…
Nomsa Mazwai’s interview was a new experience because she is so many amazing people wrapped in one flamboyantly energetic body. She’s a Fulbright-scholar economist, a musician and singer, and an entrepreneur. In our conversation she talks about Soweto Night Out, a business created through her think tank Funkatam Walking, which is entirely focused on women’s…
Noelene Kotschan is the founder of Pink Drive, an NPC that has spent 18 years bringing free health screening to South African communities without access to hospitals. What began as breast cancer awareness has since grown into a fleet of mobile trucks offering mammography, Pap smears, HPV and PSA screening, skin and lung cancer checks,…
Ferial Adams, founder of WaterCAN (Water Community Action Network), is a longtime environmental justice activist with a PhD focused on citizen science. She explains how a R200 water-testing kit lets ordinary people verify contamination in their own water, giving them evidence to challenge municipalities and validation for illnesses they’d long suspected were water-related. She discusses…
Chantal Nativel leads twice-monthly volunteer cleanups of the Braamfontein Spruit in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. What began as dog walks with her German shepherd and a master’s thesis on water pollution and perimenopause grew into International Rivers Day cleanups that now draw a small, committed group pulling string, polystyrene, car parts, and even washing machines from…
Welcome Witbooi, founder of BrightSpark Foundation was raised in Cape Town’s gang-infested Valhalla Park. He was a promising student but was drawn into gang life through absent role models and community influence. Sentenced to 23 years in prison at just 17, he had to join the 28s gang to survive, rising rapidly to General by…
Bronwyn Jones, founder of Bokashi Bran, tells us about Bokashi, a Japanese fermentation method that lets people compost cooked food, meat, and dairy waste that is normally excluded from home composting and sent to landfill. But the catch is, as she explains, that food waste sent to landfill produces roughly 627kg of CO2-equivalent emissions per…
Sifiso Gumbi, a former waste picker, founded Urban Surfer to improve conditions for South Africa’s informal reclaimers. He started collecting recyclables in Soweto at 19, eventually building a buyback centre before partnering with two collaborators who saw brand potential in supporting reclaimers with proper trolleys, training and protective equipment. Sifiso describes Urban Surfer’s flagship project…
This Way Up, the podcast that shines a light into the corners of South Africa where change is happening.