Daily Sun Celebrates child philanthropist
Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) takes great pleasure in presenting a GLAD[1]to Daily Sun for their article titled, “Young Bonolo has a big heart!” (06/07/2023), which captures the inspiring story of Bonolo, a compassionate 14-year-old girl who has been running a soup kitchen for her community since 2021. This article receives the GLAD for its portrayal of Bonolo as a young leader and activist in her community, giving her a platform to share her voice and featuring a heartwarming video of her during one of the soup kitchen events.
Authored by Azola Jokweni, the article delves into the life of Bonolo Moahludi, who resides in Johannesburg’s Alexandra Township. By conducting interviews with Bonolo and her mother, the journalist skillfully unravels Bonolo’s strong desire and passion for initiating the soup kitchen. In her own words, Bonolo reveals, “I started the soup kitchen in June 2021 during Child Protection Week. It all started when I saw a feeding scheme here in Alex close during Covid-19.”The story also gives detail of the impact of the closing of the feeding scheme, which for Bonolo hit home and pushed her to act, “Bonolo said she came up with the idea of a soup kitchen after a friend didn’t have lunch at school and she gave her half of her lunch”.
MMA’s 2022 analysis of media’s coverage of children reveals that only 6% of the stories monitored mentioned/involved children. This means that in 2022, only 6% of all reported stories during the monitoring period reported on children[2]. This greatly affects how children are seen in society and therefore this story must be commended for challenging the stereotypical portrayal of children, particularly of the girl child, in the media.
Although the article focuses on Bonolo’s soup kitchen, the journalists also highlighted Bonolo’s other achievements, stating that she “presents a weekend show on Alex FM and is a Save the Children defender, and “among the unsung heroes being spotlighted this Nelson Mandela Month”.
MMA congratulates the Daily Sun on an inspiring article that portrays children as leaders who are able to lead and champion community focused initiatives, and also gives them a voice to share their story.
We look forward to reading more articles like these, Well done!
Written by Phakamile Madonsela
Edited by Ntombifuthi Kubeka
[1] GLADs are awarded to media for reporting on children positively and for accessing them.
[2] https://mediamonitoringafrica.org/wordpress22/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/An-analysis-of-medias-coverage-of-children-in-2022-4-1.pdf