© 2018 South Africa - The Good News No Images? Click here HERITAGE DAY: What makes us….us? There is so much ‘stuff’ going on at the moment in this the country of our birth, which we call home, where we have our roots, where we have our heritage – to the point where we question the very essence and meaning of ‘heritage day’; is it just another public holiday?; a somewhat superficial ‘braai day’?; a time to lament what could have been?; or a real time to celebrate? I took time out to reflect………….. PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE – REMEMBER? It has become fashionable for the media (and others) to bash SA president Cyril Ramaphosa. Even those who should know better than to get sucked in. A couple weeks back, I joined the mob by criticising him for quoting Mao in Beijing. I wasn’t there, so didn’t appreciate the context. Not exactly my finest moment. Which became obvious yesterday when I was reading how my political hero Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert rated Ramaphosa. In his brilliant book The Other Side of History, Slabbert provides detail about how, in 1992, South Africa avoided its widely predicted Syria-type future. And how Cyril was key in this process. GROWING VEGGIES IN A BOX, WHO THOUGHT OF THAT? By Rebecca Atherstone I work with an inspiring woman, Renshia Manuel who is a recognized social entrepreneur in Hanover Park and founder of Grow Box – a portable vegetable garden that is revolutionising food growing in a community that is most affected by food insecurity. Renshia first started growing vegetables in her backyard in 2015 to feed her four children, and then invented Grow Box in 2016, a portable wooden box that allows people living in cramped housing conditions to grow their own vegetables. Grow Box can be used by people living in dense, high rise flats with small balconies, as well as backyard dwellers or residents of informal settlements. THIS WEEK'S FAST FACTProvinces as independent states Using nominal GDP figures as a comparison, in 2016, Gauteng’s economy was roughly the same size as that of North Africa’s Morocco. According to StatsSA, KwaZulu-Natal produced a level of economic output that was similar to that of Tanzania, while Northern Cape has an economy that was roughly on par with that of Bermuda. If Gauteng had to become its own nation, it would find itself in the top 10 in Africa. Gauteng’s economy was the seventh largest in Africa in 2016, surpassing heavyweights such as Kenya and Tanzania. Western Cape was in the sixteenth spot, generating about the same level of economic activity as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). (http://bit.ly/2zl92Cy) Source www.Eighty20.co.za Follow us: |