Durban FilmMart Introduces Equitable Coproduction Programme with EAVE Experts

The Durban FilmMart (DFM) has announced a new Equitable Coproduction programme for its 2026 edition, designed by EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs) and  is bringing four leading EAVE experts to Durban to address one of the most pressing issues in international filmmaking: how to build coproductions that are fair, transparent and sustainable for all partners involved.

Top Tamara Dawit (Gobez Media – Canada & Ethiopia) (Left) , Amil Shivji (Kijiweni Productions – Tanzania) (Right) Bottom: May Odeh (Odeh Films – Palestine & Germany) (Left) and Linda Mutawi (Fikra – Sweden) (Right)

Taking place under the theme “Shifting Worlds: Turning Towards Ourselves,” the 17th Durban FilmMart, scheduled from 9 to 12 October 2026, continues to expand its Industry Programme to meet the practical needs of producers navigating an increasingly global production landscape. The Equitable Coproduction programme, delivered across a masterclass series and a dedicated clinic, gives delegates both the frameworks and the individual guidance needed to structure partnerships that share power, risk and reward more evenly.

“Coproduction has always been positioned as a route to bigger budgets and wider access, but we have often identified that those partnerships are not always fair,” says Durban FilmMart Institute Director, Magdalene Reddy. “By presenting a programmatic element-based EAVE’s recently developed Equitable Coproduction research and report DFM is equipping producers with practical tools to negotiate equitable creative, financial and legal terms from the outset, not as an afterthought.”

“The EAVE Impact Think Tank on Equitable and Inclusive Production Practices was created to examine the structural realities shaping independent production and develop practical responses. DFM was a natural partner in adapting and delivering this comprehensive, hands-on programme for African producers,” says EAVE CEO, Kristina Trapp. “Together, we aim to provide clear steps, best practices and practical tools for integrating inclusive production and coproduction practices into professional workflows, empowering producers to create meaningful and lasting change across the continent.”

Four Masterclasses on Equitable Coproduction

Presented in the DFM Industry Programme and open to all delegates, the masterclass series combines best-practice techniques with case studies drawn from the EAVE experts’ own experience, covering the full production lifecycle from development through to delivery. The four EAVE experts who will be present in Durban are Tamara Dawit (Gobez Media – Canada & Ethiopia), Linda Mutawi (Fikra – Sweden), May Odeh (Odeh Films – Palestine & Germany) and Amil Shivji (Kijiweni Productions – Tanzania).

Developing with an Inclusive Lens positions the development phase as the critical point at which to embed equity, care and intentionality into a project. Participants will explore care-based development frameworks, including collaborative story design and consent-driven research, to build a transparent roadmap from concept to production.

Inclusive Financing & Budgeting introduces budgeting tools and financing strategies that promote equity across a production, including fair compensation and practical approaches to shared ownership, transparent practices and community benefit. The session also addresses how to navigate currency imbalances in international coproductions.

Inclusive Co-Productions examines how to build partnerships that uphold creative equity, financial fairness and shared IP ownership and revenue participation, particularly across regions with differing resources. The session covers negotiating fair terms, drafting inclusive contracts and navigating legal frameworks that support long-term, respectful collaboration.

Inclusive Production Practices offers practical guidance for managing productions across diverse cultural and geographic contexts, including inclusive hiring, cross-cultural crew coordination, ethical casting, safer set protocols and culturally sensitive scheduling. The session also addresses production and post-production workflows that prioritise access, consent and psychological safety.

Equitable Coproduction Clinic

Recognising that many challenges are specific to an individual project and cannot be fully addressed in a masterclass setting, DFM will also host an Equitable Coproduction Clinic. The clinic gives delegates direct, one-on-one access to the EAVE experts behind the masterclass series.

Delegates can book a dedicated 15-minute slot with an expert to work through concerns specific to their own project, from navigating power dynamics to structuring fair creative and financial partnerships. With four experts running concurrent sessions, the clinic can support up to 50 to 60 delegates individually, ensuring the guidance on offer is tailored rather than generic. Bookings are coordinated by the DFM team to make access straightforward.

Register now: durbanfilmmart.co.za

For inquiries: info@durbanfilmmart.com

The 17th edition Durban FilmMart is funded by the Durban Film Office, eThekwini Municipality, Ford Foundation, the National Film and Video Foundation and IEFTF.

-ends

Durban-based initiative targets 13,000 tonnes of plastic recovery across KZN

East Coast Recycling Partnership, a Green Corridors-managed initiative, targets 13,000 tonnes of plastic waste recovery across KwaZulu-Natal.

Durban, South Africa: The East Coast Recycling Partnership, a project managed by Green Corridors NPC aims to recover 13,0000 tonnes of plastic waste from landfills, streets, open spaces and waterways across KwaZulu-Natal, over a 14-month period.

Set up in March 2025, the ECRP is a regional collaborative that aims to strengthen South Africa’s waste recovery value chain, focussing on the development of Buy Back Centre enterprises (BBCs), which are vital economic hubs in the recycling supply chain. In the month prior to the ECRP, the initial seven BBC partners collected 261 tonnes of plastics. By February 2026, the Partnership grew to eleven BBCs that collected 703 tons based on verified sales records.  A combined 6,260 tonnes of plastic was recycled over the 12 months to February 2026- an average of 522 tonnes a month, doubling the output.

The programme supported more than 600 informal reclaimers who recovered more than 1,376 tonnes directly from landfills, streets and open spaces and invested R5.6 million into BBCs, sustaining more than 140 permanent jobs.

The next phase commenced in May 2026 with five BBCs from the first phase and a collective baseline of 308 tonnes of plastic recycled, 124 jobs and 680 reclaimer livelihoods supported. The ECRP has expanded its footprint covering Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Newcastle, Empangeni, Ladysmith, Eshowe, Scottburgh and Margate. Working with these 10 established BBCs and start-up mini-BBCs at three Durban informal settlements, the Programme targets over 13,000 tonnes of plastic recycled, 1950 informal reclaimers livelihoods impacted and 275 permanent jobs sustained, through a combined investment of over R11 million by June 2027.

“Our main sponsors the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) and Unilever South Africa, working alongside Producer Responsibility Organisations and other plastics recycling industry partners, are enabling the ECRP to integrate the entire waste recovery chain,” explains Gary Cullen, ECRP Project Manager. “The Partnership links informal reclaimers directly to industry and establishes a unified system that is inclusive, scalable, data‑driven, and designed for sustainability.”

“Every tonne recovered through BBCs in the ECRP is tracked through a digital reporting system, giving funders, partners and municipalities verified data on volumes recovered, incomes generated and reclaimers paid,” says Cullen

“A central focus of this phase is commercial sustainability,” says Cullen. “Our Enterprise and Supplier Development partner, Sigma International, has developed Business Support Plans with all thirteen BBCs and will provide mentorship over the next year, for which Corporate Enterprise Development funding is to be raised. These plans will guide the investments by Green Corridors and PRO partners into financial and data management, purchasing from reclaimers and infrastructure and equipment to grow and sustain their businesses.”

“This initiative demonstrates how collaboration across industry, communities, and local partners can build a recycling system that is both inclusive and commercially sustainable. The project reflects the Alliance’s strategy to drive system-level change by supporting solutions that address barriers to plastic circularity. By connecting informal reclaimers to the broader value chain, ECRP is not only diverting plastic from landfills and waterways, but also creating livelihoods, strengthening the circular economy in South Africa, and demonstrating the kind of locally grounded, commercially viable solutions needed to build more effective waste management systems,” says Kirchlin Simhadri, Senior Advisor, South Africa, Alliance to End Plastic Waste. “

“We believe we have a responsibility to invest in solutions that support the circular economy,” says Yase Godlo, Sustainability & Partnerships Manager - Unilever South Africa. “The ECRP model that links informal reclaimers directly to Buy Back Centres and industry, is exactly the kind of inclusive, data-driven system we need to scale if South Africa is going to build a truly circular economy. We are pleased to see the Partnership's growth into this next phase, and remain committed to supporting the reclaimers and BBC enterprises who make this recovery work possible.”

The ECRP is seeking partnerships with corporates that are interested to engage with mentored waste recovery SMMEs through their Enterprise and Supplier Development programmes.

Organisations, industry players and investors interested in playing a part in this collaborative partnership building a viable circular economy for SMMEs in KwaZulu-Natal can contact the project directly on ecrp-admin@durbangreencorridor.co.za.

-ends

13th European Film Festival South Africa Returns to Durban

The 13th European Film Festival South Africa presents the latest award-winning, critically-acclaimed and star-studded European films for local audiences to experience in cinemas around South Africa from 17 to 27 September. And eight top-end films will be screened at the New Noise Courtyard, on Durban’s Point, over the weekends of 18 to 20 September and 25 to 27 September.

As the world faces ever faster and enormous changes, the festival’s offerings from across the continent paints intimate, human portraits of family in all its different forms as vital to personal, psychological and social survival. 

The 13th European Film Festival South Africa brings eight exciting titles to Durban, showcasing an exceptional selection of contemporary European cinema. The programme includes new work from Oscar-winning directors Pawel Pawlikowski and Paolo Sorrentino, social-realist legends the Dardenne Brothers, and BAFTA-winning feature debutant Akinola Davies Jr., alongside intriguing and engaging films from both established and emerging European storytellers.

Featuring outstanding performances from some of Europe’s finest talent—including Mads Mikkelsen, Javier Bardem, Sandra Hüller and Carice van Houten—as well as a host of exciting newcomers taking on demanding and emotionally charged roles, the Festival explores family in all its complexity, examining its realities, relationships and challenges across time, place and genre.

The Last Viking, opens the Festival in Pretoria and the moves to Durban -with Denmark’s biggest star Mads Mikkelsen, leading the star-studded cast of this madcap, blackly comic Danish family-drama/crime-caper-noir about brothers, mental health, past secrets, the Beatles and getting by with more than a little bit of help from your friends. 

Winner of the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut, My Father’s Shadow (UK), British-Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr’s first feature marks the arrival of a vital, bold new voice in world cinema. Poetically realised with haunting imagery and bustling, vivid, angry life it’s a deeply personal film that’s a tribute not only to its creators’ own father but to all parents who daily face the struggles to keep their families alive and together at all costs. 

Oscar- and BAFTA-winning leading Italian director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) reteams with collaborator Toni Servillo in La Grazia (Italy). Servillo won a Best Actor statue at the Venice Film Festival for his performance in this elegantly styled, intimate drama about fathers, daughters, love, duty and the eternal question of “who owns our days?”- set against the grubby backdrop of Italian politics. 

Colours of Time (France), directed by Cédric Klapisch is a family drama that weaves together stories from one family’s 19th century past and their 21st-century present. A memorably delightful and touching exploration of art, family and history. 

Porcelain War (Ukraine) directed by Brendan Bellomo and this stunning documentary’s key protagonist, Slava Leontyev, is an inspirational Oscar-nominated film in which Leontyev, his wife, and their friend tell, at great personal risk and with footage they shot, the story of how their lives as artists were brutally upended by the war in Ukraine. Now, with roles as Ukrainian soldiers – they’ve never lost their passion for art and nature as they risk everything for family, nation and freedom. 

In A Family (Netherlands) Dutch director Mees Peijnenburg offers a powerful window on divorce in modern Europe, told empathetically through the eyes of a brother and sister trying to each find their own ways and hopefully a path together through the aftermath of the bitter war between their parents. It stars Carice van Houten (Game of Thrones) and Pieter Embrechts.

Veteran award-winning Polish director Agnieszka Holland offers an energetic and generally bright biopic about the enigmatic literary genius Franz Kafka, in Franz. The film contemplates its protagonist, his difficult relationship with his father, and imagines how his legacy might be celebrated in the future. 

Ireland’s Christy is the debut feature from Brendan Canty that has picked up many nominations and awards at this year’s Irish Film and TV Awards for its tender direction and impressive lead performance from Danny Power as the title character – a teenager with a murkily remembered tragic past, who, after he’s kicked out of his latest foster home, returns to Cork to stay with his estranged brother. As he tries to figure out his future, he rediscovers the relationship with his brother and begins to imagine a home among people in a place he might yet grow to know and love. 

"Working alongside the European Film Festival for the past six years has been a privilege, and hosting screenings at our new event space in Durban marks an exciting new chapter. We hope to build on the incredible foundation laid by Peter Rorvik, continuing to energise Durban’s creative and cultural landscape. Ultimately, this festival is about more than world-class cinema - it’s about bringing people together. We invite the community to join us and be part of it." Steve Jones (New Noise, Founder & Director).

The festival pays tribute to the tireless dedication and vision of a former co-director of the festival Peter Rorvik, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Peter was a passionate supporter of independent films, and nurtured a generation of film lovers and filmmakers across South Africa and beyond for decades. 

The 13th European Union Film Festival South Africa takes place from 17 to 27 September 2026 at venues in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. In Durban, screenings will be held at New Noise Courtyard, a multi-purpose cultural space that will be transformed into a mini-theatre to present these films at 5 Southampton Street, Point, Durban Secure parking is available at uShaka Marine World.

Tickets are limited to 40 tickets per screening and can be purchased via Quicket. Refreshments and popcorn will also be available to purchase.

For the full programme and schedule follow on social media or go to www.eurofilmfest.co.za

• My Father’s Shadow — Friday 18 Sept, 7:00 PM

• Colours of Time — Sat 19 Sept, 5:00 PM

• Christy — Sat 19 Sept, 8:00 PM

• Franz — Sun 20 Sept, 5:00 PM

• The Last Viking — Fri 25 Sept, 7:00 PM

• Porcelain War — Sat 26 Sept, 5:00 PM

• A Family — Sat 26 Sept, 7:30 PM

• La Grazia — Sun 27 Sept, 5:00 PM

JOMBA! @ The Market Theatre celebrates world-class contemporary dance in Johannesburg

9 – 12 September 2026 / 7pm / John Kani Theatre, The Market Theatre: Following the 28th edition of the Centre for Creative Arts' JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience in Durban (26 August to 6 September), the pioneering festival returns to Johannesburg with JOMBA! @ The Market Theatre from 9 to 12 September with a carefully curated four-night season celebrating exceptional contemporary dance from South Africa, Africa and Europe.

Now in its fourth partnership year, JOMBA! and the Market Theatre continue their commitment to expand access to ground-breaking contemporary dance by bringing a selection of the JOMBA! Festival's productions to Johannesburg audiences, to celebrate innovation, artistic excellence and the transformative power of movement across cultures, generations and borders.

JOMBA! @ The Market Theatre takes place in the John Kani Theatre and features internationally acclaimed artists and companies alongside two of South Africa's most influential choreographic voices.

Celebrating South African choreographic excellence

The season honours two previous JOMBA! Legacy Artists whose work has transformed contemporary dance in South Africa and internationally. Acclaimed choreographer Mamela Nyamza presents her breath-taking ensemble work THE HERD/LESS, a visually arresting meditation on community, conformity, vulnerability and survival. Characterised by Nyamza's fearless choreographic language and uncompromising social commentary, the work powerfully interrogates belonging and resistance.

Internationally celebrated choreographer and performer Vincent Mantsoe, whose deeply embodied artistic practice bridges ancestral knowledge with contemporary performance, presents his compelling new solo Desert Poems. This intimate work offers a profound meditation on endurance, spirituality and transformation through Mantsoe's distinctive movement vocabulary.

International collaboration takes centre stage

Opening this fourth JOMBA! @ The Market Theatre season is the extraordinary HEROES, presented by the world-renowned Dutch company Introdans in collaboration with Uganda's Joseph Tebandeke and guests, Durban's FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY. This remarkable programme spans internationally celebrated choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Iratxe Ansa and Igor Bacovich, alongside new South African choreography by Zinhle Nzama. The programme also features the inclusive masterpiece IUNGO by Adriaan Luteijn, bringing together performers of different backgrounds, generations and physical abilities in a powerful celebration of humanity, diversity and connection.

Workshops with internationally renowned artists

As part of the season, JOMBA! and The Market Theatre will host two free professional development workshops at the Sophiatown Studio, offering dancers and movement practitioners the opportunity to work directly with internationally acclaimed artists.

On Tuesday, 8 September (4.30–6pm), Giuseppe Calabrese, ballet master with Introdans, leads a repertoire workshop exploring the choreographic language of renowned Belgian-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Participants will engage with concepts of fluidity, musicality, connection and dynamic movement quality, drawing on Calabrese's extensive experience performing Cherkaoui's celebrated repertoire.

On Friday, 11 September (4.30–6pm), Vincent Mantsoe shares his celebrated KOBA Technique, described as a "physical meditation." Integrating traditional and contemporary dance practices, the workshop invites participants to explore identity, presence and embodied expression through Mantsoe's internationally recognised movement philosophy.

Booking Information Performance tickets: https://markettheatre.co.za/ Workshop bookings: 2024jomba@gmail.com. Workshop places are free, but booking is essential as numbers are limited.

Performance Programme

Wednesday, 9 September | 7pm HEROES Introdans (Netherlands) with guests Joseph Tebandeke (Uganda) and FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY (South Africa)

Thursday, 10 September | 7pm HEROES Introdans (Netherlands) with guests Joseph Tebandeke (Uganda) and FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY (South Africa)

Friday, 11 September | 7pm THE HERD/LESS Choreographed by Mamela Nyamza MAM – Mamela's Artistic Movement (South Africa)

Saturday, 12 September | 7pm Desert Poems Choreographed and performed by Vincent Mantsoe

Workshop Programme

Tuesday, 8 September | 4.30–6pm Introdans Repertoire Workshop Led by Giuseppe Calabrese Venue: Market Theatre Sophiatown Studio

Friday, 11 September | 4.30–6pm KOBA Technique Workshop Led by Vincent Mantsoe Venue: Market Theatre Sophiatown Studio

SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge Durban Central Regionals - Durban Girls’ College: Saturday 29 August

Clutching onto their title, Durban Girls’ College successfully defended the trophy in a nail-biter of a final at the Durban Central Regional of the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge that they hosted on Saturday 29 August.

College met local rivals, Durban Girls’ High School in the concluding game of the tournament where the game went down to the wire. Girls’ High have featured in the last three Durban Central Regional finals, finishing in second place in all three, two of those games have been against Girls’ College. Last year, College confidently won the regional final, whilst this year Girls’ High were a force to be reckoned with. 

Next step. Intercepting, Durban Girls’ College’s Ndondo Ntombela snuffs the attack by Durban Girls’ High School’s Alwande Ntsele during the final of the Durban Central Regional of the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 6’s Netball Challenge that College hosted on Saturday 29 August. Photo: Rogan Ward

Sitting up on the hill, the picturesque setting was prone to a blustery north easter gusting across the field, giving the shooters an extra challenge to read the conditions as they fired off their shots. 

College got the finals underway and within seconds, Girls’ High had executed the first of many intercepts that had the ball ricocheting around the midfield. The first attempt at goals was made by Girls High with only 50 seconds on the clock, but it was unsuccessful. College had a handful of attempts on the ‘breezy’ end but in similar fashion, the score remained unchanged. The first half was a feast of rapid retaliations as both teams pushed the game to the limits in a tightly contested final. 

It took over 4 minutes before the first goal was netted by Girls’ High with their shooter being awarded a penalty directly under the pole after she was obstructed. 30 seconds later, College had levelled on the other end. Girls’ High worked hard in their attacks led by captain, Tyra Norris, at the 8-minute half time whistle, the visitors led by 4-2. 

The second half got underway with College again tipping off, this time the home team had an air of urgency, within 90 seconds they had sent the ball up to their forwards who were now shooting on the sheltered end, the scoreline was quickly levelled at 4 all with Ndondo Ntombela working hard as the playmaker in the middle. Midway through the second half, College pocketed two back-to-back 1 pointers, giving them the edge. Girls’ High dug deep but only managed to advance by one, which had College replying with another goal on the other end. In the final minute Girls’ High threw everything at College, taking the scoreline to 7-8. In a last gasp attempt, as the final seconds ticked by, Alwande Ntsele was gifted the last chance of the game. Steadying herself, she took an extra second to gage the gusts but her pause for composure unfortunately took too long and as her shot flew goalwards, the umpire’s whistle sounded disallowing the buzzer shot.

College earned their fourth title in the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Challenge, winning in 2022, 2023, 2025 and 2026. 

In the build up to the finals, Durban Girls College topped their log with newcomers, Madlenkosi High School making a big impact in their first appearance finishing second in the log and advancing to the semi-finals. In Pool B, Durban Girls’ High School topped their log with St Henry’s Marist College finishing second. College took on St Henry’s in the first semi where the result was 12 – 6 in favour of the home team. Special mention to the hard-working Zasembo Mkhize for her sublime aerial assaults in overturning the ball countless times. In the second semi-final, Girls’ High met Madlenkosi in their inaugural top four playoff. Girls’ High claimed victory with an 8-4 win. 

The next regional heads to Hillcrest High School where teams competing in the Highway Regional will be taking to the court in the hopes of dethroning the host school who are vying for their fourth title. 

For more info follow the tournament on their social media pages.

Results

Final

Durban Girls’ College 8 vs Durban Girls’ High School 7

Semi-finals

Durban Girls’ College 12 vs St Henry’s Marist College 6

Durban Girls’ High School 8 vs Madlenkosi High School 4 

Pool A

1 Durban Girls’ College 15pts; 2 Madlenkosi High School 12pts; 3 Phambiti High School 7pts; 4 Igagasi High School 7pts; 5 Port Natal School  / Skool 3pts; 6 Werda Skool / School Seconds 0pts

Pool B

11 Durban Girls’ High School 15pts; 2 St Henry’s Marist College 12pts; 3 Durban Girls' College Invitational 9pts; 4 Werda Skool / School First 6pts; 5 Ridge Park College 3pts; 6 Mowat Park High School 0pts

ISPA's Gabriel YoungStar takes Pick of the Platform at JOMBA! LIVE OPEN HORIZONS 2026

DURBAN, 28 August 2026: Last night (27 August) young Durban choreographer Gabriel YoungStar’s work "The Meeting", featuring students of the International School of Performing Arts, was named Pick of the Platform at JOMBA! LIVE OPEN HORIZONS 2026, the annual showcase for emerging dance-makers presented as part of the Centre for Creative Arts' 28th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience.

YoungStar's work, The Meeting, took the familiar ritual of the corporate boardroom and transformed it into an arena of ambition, hierarchy, manipulation and survival. Behind the polished language of professional diplomacy, the piece revealed another conversation communicated through gesture, posture, proximity and power - exploring shifting relationships of authority and submission, alliance and betrayal, control and confrontation.

Photo of Gabriel YoungStar's The Meeting at JOMBA! LIVE OPEN HORIZONS. Photo by Val Adamson

Announcing the award, the JOMBA! LIVE OPEN HORIZONS  jury praised the range of work on this year's platform, noting the commitment, discipline and focus shown by the young performers on stage, with each work fully rehearsed and carefully costumed, with attention to good lighting and some wonderful music choices. 

 Of The Meeting, the jury said the piece impressed with precise partnering, risk-taking and an intense energy that elicited spontaneous encouragement from the audience, with an ensemble that was synchronised and well-drilled in its exploration of confrontation, submission and control.

The jury gave a special mention to choreographer Thembani Ngxelo for What Happened to the People of Bantu?, which they described as an evocative and visceral conjuring of cultural memory, drawing on Ngxelo's Xhosa heritage and combining strong visual, live vocal and digital elements. The jury noted that Ngxelo's choreographic voice has much to say and deserves further development.

Thembani Ngxelo for What Happened to the People of Bantu? at JOMBA! LIVE OPEN HORIZONS. The jury gave a special mention to choreographer Thembani Ngxelo for What Happened to the People of Bantu?, which they described as an evocative and visceral conjuring of cultural memory, drawing on Ngxelo's Xhosa heritage and combining strong visual, live vocal and digital elements. Photo by Val Adamson.

The 2026 Open Horizons jury comprised: Clare Craighead (non-voting chair), Drama and Production Studies lecturer at DUT, dance writer and academic based in Durban, Jabu Siphika, Durban-based dancer and choreographer, senior company member of FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY; Tammy Ballantyne, Johannesburg-based dance writer and journalist and Warona Seane, acclaimed South African actor and theatre director, teaching in UKZN's Drama and Performance Studies Programme.

JOMBA! continues until 6 September at venues around Durban. For more information go to https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

Dr Ismail Mahomed honoured with 2026 JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Lifetime Achievement Award

DURBAN, 25 August 2026: Dr Ismail Mahomed, Director of the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, was presented with the 2026 JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Lifetime Achievement Award last night (25 August) at the opening of the 28th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, at UKZN, Durban.

The award was presented by Dr Lliane Loots, curator of JOMBA!, on behalf of the Centre for Creative Arts and the JOMBA! team, in recognition of Dr Mahomed's sustained contribution to South African and African contemporary dance and to the wider arts sector.

Dr Ismail Mahomed, Director of the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, received the 2026 JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Lifetime Achievement Award last night (25 August) at the opening of the 28th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, at UKZN, Durban, pictured here addressing the opening night audience. Photo by Val Adamson.

In presenting the award, Dr Loots paid tribute to Dr Mahomed's decades of work opening platforms for artists and dancers across South Africa, the African continent and beyond. She described him as someone who understood, often before others did, that an artist needs not only a stage but a door that opens, not only an audience, but someone willing to make the spaces in which art and dance can breathe.

Through his years of service to the arts and his leadership of the Centre for Creative Arts, Dr Mahomed has helped create openings where there might otherwise have been walls, and possibilities where there might have been silence. “Dr Mahomed’s work has never been only about presenting what is already known, but about making room for what is still becoming building platforms upon which dance makers could gather their bodies, stories, questions and dreams, and take the risks that art requires.”

“Across festivals, programmes, collaborations and countless encounters at the Centre for Creative Arts, Dr Mahomed's leadership has helped weave connections between dancers, artists, communities and countries, as a bridge-builder, a door-opener, a provocateur of possibility, and above all, a steadfast believer in the necessity of the arts. For JOMBA!, Dr Mahomed's contribution forms part of the festival's longer choreography, one built not only of dancers and dances, but of those who have helped hold the space, nurture the vision, and ensure that the dance could continue.”

In accepting the award, the festival paid tribute not only to what Dr Mahomed has done, but to what his work has enabled: the artists and dancers who found a stage, the voices and dancing bodies that found an audience, the artistic conversations that crossed borders, and the possibilities that became real because he helped make space for them.

The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented with what organisers described as deep gratitude, admiration and affection, marking one of the milestone moments of this year's opening night.

JOMBA! runs until 6 September at various venues in Durban, and a shorter version of it runs a The Market Theatre in Johannesburg from 13 to 16 September.

More information can be found at https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

Tourism's Carbon Story Is Bigger Than Its Footprint

This Tourism Month, Verified Impact - the sustainability standard behind a Southern African pilot programme helping tourism properties get a clear picture of their carbon footprint - is using real tourism data to show why measuring carbon footprints in tourism matters, why comparison matters even more, and why keeping wild places wild belongs in the climate conversation.

When one thinks about the climate impact of tourism, the conversation usually begins with emissions: flights, vehicles, electricity, generators and fuel. That does matter. But it is only half the story.

GweGwe Beach Lodge

This, according to Duncan Pritchard, Director of ETC Africa, Verified Impact's carbon measurement and verification partner: "Across Southern Africa, tourism provides an economic reason for vast areas of natural habitat to remain intact. Those landscapes are not simply beautiful places to visit. Their soils and vegetation store carbon, support biodiversity, protect water systems and sustain ecological processes that disappear when natural land is transformed. Wild areas are climate infrastructure."

Tourism has two carbon stories to understand: the emissions created by operating tourism businesses, and the invaluable carbon sinks that tourism helps give economic value to protecting.

In Toto Retreat

Verified Impact which is the tourism specific, local carbon footprint standard being developed  through the kimkim Climate Action Pilot Programme, delivered in partnership with kimkim, the Wilderness Leadership School, ETC Africa and The Eco Travel Boutique. The project is putting verifiable data behind tourism sustainability claims, while helping the industry better articulate the economic value of responsible, thoughtful tourism operations.  Kimkim is a US-based travel company that joined the 1% for the Planet in 2025, pledging at least 1% of its annual revenue to environmental causes while continuing to fund climate related  projects. 

"A carbon footprint is a starting point, not an answer," explains Pritchard. “Is 12 kg CO₂e per bed night good? Could it be 9? Why is another lodge at 25? Is that because it is less efficient, or because it relies on a carbon-intensive electricity grid? Does its remote location mean greater generator use or longer supply chains? Are game drives, laundry, food or low occupancy pushing emissions higher? Without context and comparison, carbon accounting gives you numbers. Benchmarking turns those numbers into useful information."

POD Camps Bay

Verified Impact benchmarks properties against comparable African tourism operations rather than international averages that often bear little resemblance to operating realities on the continent. In doing so, it is building one of the most meaningful datasets yet on the carbon performance of African ecotourism, creating a clearer picture of what good performance actually looks like in an African context

According to Pritchard, the patterns are already emerging, for example, grid-connected properties in the current dataset are averaging around 3.6 times the carbon emissions per bed night of comparable off-grid properties, largely because of the carbon intensity of South Africa's electricity supply.

Rhino Sands Safari Lodge

In safari operations, one of the largest operational opportunities can be something far less obvious: how game drives are managed. Emissions from game viewing vehicles tend to be one of the highest emissions sources at a lodge -not laundry, not the kitchen, the game drive.

The data is also revealing what Verified Impact calls a "behavioural dividend": emissions reductions that require little or no capital investment. Better energy optimisation, vehicle utilisation and basic operational discipline can reduce emissions before a property spends a rand on new technology.

“This is precisely why comparison matters. Knowing that diesel represents 30% of a lodge’s footprint tells you something. Knowing that its diesel use per bed night is twice that of comparable lodges tells you where to start asking questions. That is when carbon data becomes management data.”

But in many landscapes, tourism provides something conservation cannot survive without: economic value attached to keeping land wild. A functioning lodge creates jobs, purchases local goods and services, pays conservation and concession costs, and generates revenue from landscapes whose value depends upon them remaining intact. That makes reducing tourism's own operational footprint important for a much bigger reason.

“The goal is not simply to make tourism lower-carbon. It is to maximise the conservation and economic value tourism creates while minimising the carbon footprint required to create it.” says Pritchard.

Tourism Month traditionally celebrates arrivals, jobs, visitor spend and economic contribution. Verified Impact believes another measure increasingly belongs alongside them: how efficiently tourism creates that value environmentally.

“A carbon footprint shouldn’t just be a number in a report. It should tell us where we can improve, where we’re performing well, and ultimately how tourism can become a stronger force for protecting the places it depends on.” Says Pritchard 

For more information about Verified Impact go to: https://etc-africa.co.za/verified-impact

DIGITAL JOMBA! 2026 brings free screen dance from South Africa, France, Tanzania and Brazil

As part of the 28th JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, running from 25 August to 6 September 2026 in Durban, JOMBA! once again presents its digital dance offering, DIGITAL JOMBA! 2026 which is accessible to global audiences online.

Over the past six years, screen dance has grown into a significant creative form, and JOMBA! continues to champion it, particularly work coming out of the global South. This year's programme features a curated line-up of digital artists, screened free of charge via the festival's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/Jomba_Dance/streams

Darkroom Contemporary (Cape Town, South Africa) feature on Sunday 30 August @ 6pm (SAST) with a special retrospective programme drawing on sixteen years of filmmaking from Darkroom Contemporary, the Cape Town-based screendance company founded in 2010 by choreographer and filmmaker Louise Coetzer and photographer and filmmaker Oscar O'Ryan. Across the selected works, the company's ongoing exploration of movement, landscape, architecture, memory and the camera comes into focus, tracing the development of Coetzer and O'Ryan's collaboration and their sustained approach to choreography as a cinematic language.

Dream's Descent (Greg Maqoma, Sara CF de Gouveia, Inka Kendzia and Motheo Moeng)

The programme includes eight screendance films: Blue Funk, Not From Here, META | m o r p h, Lacuna, The Forgotten,give/take (the act of erasure), WRPD, and I walk the street with loose parts, featuring performers including Bronwyn Craddock, Mukovhe Monyai, Farnel Smart, Mthuthuzeli November, Christopher Sherwood Adcock, Louise Coetzer and members of the Dance For All InSPIRAtions Youth Company, among others.

Louise Coetzer is a Cape Town-based multidisciplinary dance artist, filmmaker and choreographer whose practice spans screendance, site-specific performance and digital media, presented internationally across Africa, Europe, North and South America. Oscar O'Ryan is a Cape Town-based photographer and filmmaker whose documentary work has included projects for the BBC and Discovery Channel, alongside screendance works screened in France, Mexico, the UK and Finland. Together they lead Darkroom Contemporary, with O'Ryan serving as the company's Technical Director.

NGIPHAMANDLA: Life in a Womb (Zandile Sphelele Phili)

Their work is supported by the National Lotteries Commission, the National Arts Council, the Christian Ludolph Marais Trust, and the Department of Cultural Affairs & Sport.

Brazilian choreographers Davi Pontes and Wallace Ferreira screen their work Delirar o Racial (Delirium of the Racial), on Wednesday 2 September @ 6pm (SAST). This work explores spatiality beyond conventional structures of space and time. Drawing on the thinking of philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva, the pair use methods developed in their own choreographic practice, engaging with uncertainty, and disorder to build an experimental reflection on a timeless ethics of Black life.

Pontes and Ferreira's collaborative practice sits at the intersection of dance, performance, visual art and critical thought, developed through their ongoing Repertório trilogy, which frames dance as a form of self-defense training while engaging questions of race, coloniality and the politics of the body. Delirar o Racial was commissioned by the Pivô Satélite Program in 2021.

JOMBA! DIGITAL OPEN HORIZONS returns as the festival's platform for new screen dance talent on Wednesday 26 August @ 6pm. Following an open call for submissions earlier in 2026, an independent JOMBA! jury shortlisted eight works, with the final screening selection made through a voting process concluding in mid-August. The winner of 'Pick of the JOMBA! DIGITAL OPEN HORIZONS 2026' will be announced on Wednesday, 26 August, following the screening of the jury's selected works.

Works featuring in this open platform are:

Estela Lapponi: Seliberation #3 (Brazil)

Marcia Mzindle: The Weight of Being Seen: A Refusal (Durban, SA)

Zandile Sphelele Phili: NGIPHAMANDLA: Life in a Womb (Durban, SA)

Bongani Shezi: Silent Voice (Durban,SA)

Matthieu Nieto and House of Wondar: Our Mother (France/Tanzania)

Ruth Asidi and Guga Santos: Boca da Mata (Brazil)

Gregory Maqoma, Sara CF de Gouveia and Inka Kendzia: Dream’s Descent (Johannesburg, SA)

All DIGITAL JOMBA! 2026 programming is free to view at https://www.youtube.com/Jomba_Dance/streams

For more information, go to www.jomba.ukzn.ac.za

Acts of Care: Immersive Exhibition Brings Township AIDS Project Archive to Life

A new immersive exhibition is set to transform decades-old archival material into a living, participatory experience, inviting audiences to witness, recognise, and actively continue a legacy of queer community care that began in Soweto, Johannesburg, more than three decades ago.

Acts of Care is an Extended Reality (XR) exhibition drawing on archive material from the Township AIDS Project (TAP), held by the GALA Queer Archive. Using virtual reality, augmented reality, and an interactive creative public space, the exhibition explores how communities in early 1990s Johannesburg and Soweto organised care, education, and advocacy in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, at a time when the disease was poorly understood, deeply stigmatised, and often framed as a moral or political threat.

Acts of Care Poster 2026

Acts of Care will be launched on 5 September at the Latitudes Centre for the Arts (LCA) Shepstone Gardens in Johannesburg. It is one of the projects in Futures_Past: Amplifying Memory with Immersive Technologies, an initiative of the Embassy of France in South Africa, Lesotho and Malawi and the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), in partnership with Electric South, with funding from the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Structured in three interconnected experiential zones representing the past, present, and future, that map directly into the Acts of Care visitor’s journey and experience of Caring (Witness), Loving (Recognise), and Sharing (Act). Each zone marks a different type of engagement, carrying visitors from an intimate historical encounter, through recognition and affirmation, to collective and public participation.

The first station places visitors inside a VR reconstruction of an early 1990s community counselling room in Johannesburg, narrated by Enea Motaung, who ran TAP for many years. The scene draws on lived testimony to portray the quiet, often invisible acts of care that sustained communities during the crisis.

Poster from TAP archives.

The second station is a playful, full-body AR photo experience, drawing on the bold safe-sex campaign typography and graphic aesthetics of 1990s queer activist culture, allowing visitors to see themselves reflected within the visual language of the movement. Participants can pose, move, and experiment with identity in joyful and unapologetic space. This station connects past activism to present-day self-expression and collective visibility.

At the third station, visitors are invited to design their own posters, physically or digitally, using visual assets from the TAP and GALA archive. Completed works are pasted and projected onto a growing shared wall, forming a living, evolving archive of contemporary care and advocacy that builds throughout the exhibition's run.

Archival photo of TAP outreach.

Throughout, archival photographs, pamphlets, and testimonies from TAP and the GALA Queer Archive connect the three stations, grounding the experience in lived history.

"TAP's story has lived in our collection for almost three decades, known mostly to researchers and those who lived through the HIV/AIDS crisis. Acts of Care gives us the chance to bring that history out into the open, to let new audiences encounter it not as a static record but as something they can step into and feel. This is what it means for an archive to stay alive,” says Linda Chernis, Archivist, GALA Queer Archive.

"We didn't want to simply document TAP's history, we wanted people to feel what it meant to organise care under pressure, without a manual, without institutional support, and often without the language to name what was happening,” says  Kieran Reid, Artistic Project Lead. “Building this in VR and AR helped us to hold onto that intimacy while still inviting people into something collective and hopeful, and creative."

Simon Nkoli, Township Aids Project activist, in a workshop

The exhibition draws a deliberate line between the past and the present. As international HIV/AIDS funding, including support previously channelled through PEPFAR (the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) faces cuts that are currently affecting clinics, community health workers, and prevention programmes across South Africa, Acts of Care insists that the community-led practices of care pioneered by TAP in the 1990s remain relevant today.

“Futures_Past set out to show that archives are living resources, not just repositories of the past. Acts of Care embodies that mission entirely, taking a story of care and queer resilience from the 1990s and giving it new urgency at a moment when the very systems of care it documents are once again under threat,” says Jean Spiri, Director of IFAS.

Archival poster for Pride March 1992

Acts of Care is designed to engage queer communities, HIV/AIDS activists, and health workers, as well as students, researchers, and general public audiences. It runs until 1 December 2026 (World AIDS Day) at Latitudes Centre for the Arts (LCA) in Johannesburg. Parental guidance: the exhibition has an age recommendation of 16+.

In response to and alongside Acts of Care, LCA is proud to present How is a triangle the strongest shape?curated by Denzo Nyathi,This group exhibition ponders the methodologies of endurance associated with resistance, taking a particular look at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa. Ephemera and other crafty practices are re-examined and brought to the forefront of fine art, with a queer cohort of artists — Talia Ramkilawan, Athi Patra Ruga and Sizwe Sama — practising their own forms of resistance. Exhibition details:

Venue: Latitudes Centre for the Arts, 12 Hope Rd, Mountain View, Johannesburg

Dates: 5 September to 1 December 2026 

Opening times: Weekdays, Tuesday to Friday, 10:00 - 15:00, &

 Select Saturdays (26 Sept, 31 Oct, & 28 Nov), 10h00-13h00

Programming for selected Saturday openings: https://twonamegames.com/actsofcare/ 

Instagram: @actsofcare_sa

Book here

South African Industry Organisations Featured at the 17th Durban FilmMart

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA (24 August 2026) — The Durban FilmMart remains a significant gateway to the African and global film industry for film professionals. This year, the programme, which is designed with panel discussions, masterclasses, pitch forums and networking opportunities, also offers a focus on South African cinema through its “SA in Focus” programming stream. This focus brings together the nation's most influential industry bodies, guilds and creative professionals to address the current state and future of the local audiovisual sector.

Taking place under the theme “Shifting Worlds: Turning Towards Ourselves,” the 17th Durban FilmMart, scheduled from 9 to 12 October 2026, once again anchors conversations about the health and future of the local industry within the wider market.

“The local South African industry is navigating real challenges,” says Durban FilmMart Institute Director, Magdalene Reddy. “The 2026 DFM has been programmed with a view that answers begin at home: it begins in the strength of our guilds, the ability of our practitioners to pivot, and our willingness to have honest conversations about what needs to change. By bringing together the organisations that represent South African film professionals, DFM 2026 reaffirms that a thriving local industry is the foundation for everything else we build internationally.”

Opening the SA stream, Animation SA will unpack how the sector is adapting to consolidation, shifting streaming algorithms and the rise of generative AI in the session “Africa-Centred Collaboration in a Shifting Landscape — New Strategies and Practices in Marketing, Distribution and Community Development for Animation and Gaming.” The panel features Isabelle Rorke, Mocke Jansen van Veuren, Rashid Juma, Xolile Vundla and Nick Cloete.

Xolile Vundla

The Documentary Filmmakers Association turns to the changing shape of nonfiction storytelling with “Slow Stories in a Fast World: Documentary in the Age of Infinite Content,” asking what remains uniquely documentary as creator culture and vertical storytelling reshape audience habits. The session includes Sara Hatira, Sifiso Nobela, Catherine Meyburgh, Jane Lipman and Jacqui Hlongwane.

The Writers Guild of South Africa presents “Writers vs the Machine,” tackling AI's growing role in writing and what it means for authorship, craft and copyright. The panel brings together Busisiwe Ntintili, Sizwe Fortune Zuma, Bongi Ndaba and Zunaid Mansoor.

Zunaid Mansoor

Making the case for involving editors earlier in the process, the South African Guild of Editors presents “Editors at the Table: Why Story Should Start Before Post,” arguing that stronger communication from development onward leads to healthier productions and better films. The panel features Melissa Parry, Nikki Comninos, Simon Beesley and Sifiso Khanyile.

Sifiso Khanyile

The Independent Black Filmmakers Collective confronts the structural pressures facing local production, addressing delayed incentive payments and funding uncertainty. The session, “The System Is Broken. Let's Fix It,” will also review lessons learned from countries that have successfully repositioned their audiovisual sectors. The panel brings together Lehlohonolo Mokhosi, Tumelo Chipfupa and Tshepiso Chikapa Phiri.

Tshepiso Chikapa Phiri

The Independent Producers Organisation joins this focus, the focus on the Olsberg SPI Economic Study.  The session will unpack the importance, relevance and potential impact of the study, with a particular focus on how its findings can inform the future development, sustainability and growth of South Africa’s film and television industry.  The session will feature Delon Bakker, Jade Gezane, Luke Rous, Paul Buys and Wandile Molebatsi.

Wandile Molebatsi

The South African Guild of Actors turns to questions of ownership and equity with “Turning Towards Ourselves: Performers as Co-Creators in African IP Ecosystems.” The panel discussion, proposing that performers share earlier and more fairly in the IP they help originate, rather than remaining downstream labour, will feature Adrian Galley, Vicki Bawcombe, Hungani Ndlovu and Neo Mothae.

Hungani Ndlovu

Ensuring women's perspectives remain central to industry change, Sisters Working in Film and Television (SWIFT) will present “Women's Voices on Industry Dialogues: Why Your Voice Matters.” This call for greater representation on industry bodies and in policy conversations will feature Miranda Ntshangase, Kaona Letlape, Loreley Yeowart and Amilcar Patel with Marion Seymour moderating the session.

Miranda Ntshangase

Alongside these industry-led panel discussions, the DFM programme will also feature South African policymakers throughout the event. Making their first appearance at DFM will be the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture's newly established cluster — the South African Audio-Visual Cluster and Pixel Creators (Animation and Gaming Cluster)— who will join discussions in October 2026 in Durban, positioning DFM as the essential gathering point for South African film industry advancement.

Register now: durbanfilmmart.co.za

For inquiries: info@durbanfilmmart.com

The 17th edition Durban FilmMart is funded by the Durban Film Office, eThekwini Municipality, Ford Foundation, the National Film and Video Foundation and IEFTF.

About the Durban FilmMart Institute:

Durban FilmMart Institute is the business hub of the African film industry in a world where film professionals and content are globally competitive and celebrated. The mission of the Durban FilmMart Institute is to provide appropriate and effective programmes and services to promote, support and facilitate investment in the African film industry.

SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge Southern KZN Regional - Kokstad College: Saturday 22 August

Continuing their total domination in the region, Shayamoya Area Secondary School maintained their 100% record in the Southern KZN Regional on Saturday 22 August, the only team to have this honour in the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge.

Hosted by Kokstad College, eight teams played their hearts out in the hopes of dislodging the defending champions, but Shayamoya proved to be a tour de force, claiming their fifth title on the trot since this regional began in 2022. 

Meeting travelling team, Mthatha High School in the bookend games of the tournament, Shayamoya took on the Eastern Cape team in the opening fixture of the day with the scoreline going in favour of the champs, 12 – 6. In the concluding game, the two teams clashed again in a fast-paced, exceptional final. After a fabulous intercept once Mthatha got play under way, it took Shayamoya 25 seconds to bother the scorers with captain, Kwanele Lamani netting her first point of the final.  20 seconds later, Lamani was back under the ring, slotting in her second point. 

Put your left foot in. Shayamoya Area Secondary School’s star defender, Phumela Ramkoko intercepts the ball during a round robin game at the Southern KZN Regional hosted by Kokstad College in the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge that took place on Saturday 22 August. Pic by Val Adamson.

Going into halftime, Shayamoya led by 8 to 3. In similar fashion, Mthatha got the second half started, but the quick-on-their-feet midfielders quickly snaffled the ball, sending it up to Sphesethu Mantambo, who got the points rolling for Shayamoya in the second half. 

The petite centre for Mthatha, Unako Madolo with pitbull intentions kept persisting, feeding the ball up to her shooters. The visitors had a tough time in the Shayamoya circle, being closed down often by the spritely defender, Phumela Ramkoro. Mthatha’s attackers Eneya Jokozela and Buhle Noto were lucky enough to have several attempts but unfortunately had to contend with the hard-working Ramkoro or when they managed to bypass her, had the gusty conditions causing their aerial pursuits to go off target. 

50 / 50. Shayamoya Area Secondary School’s hard working Phumela Ramkoko desperately swats at the ball as Mthatha High School’s Buhle Noto clears the ball to her waiting support as teammate Eneya Jokozela watches on during the final of the Southern KZN Regional in the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge hosted by Kokstad College on Saturday 22 August. Pic by Val Adamson.

At the final whistle, Shayamoya were victorious with the scoreline settled on 17 – 8. Mthatha who were making their third appearance in the challenge, had to settle for their second silver in consecutive years. Their first appearance in 2024, they finished fourth overall. 

In the build up to the finals, Shayamoya topped the log after their seven round robin games. Second was Mthatha with five wins, a draw in their last round robin game against Kokstad College – finishing 5 all, and a loss in their opening fixture. Third in the round robin was St Thomas Residential School who won five games and lost to Shayamoya and Mthatha. Rounding off the semi-finalists, King Edward High School from Matatiele claimed victory in four of their games, going down to Shayamoya, Mthatha and St Thomas.

In the first semi, first placed Shayamoya meet fourth placed, King Edward. In a clinical performance, Shayamoya dominated with a win of 18-2, and stamping their ticket to the final. In the second final, Mthatha went up against St Thomas. In a far more determined game, St Thomas tried their hardest to earn their first regional final appearance but were just not up to it as Mthatha managed to hold off their threats in the circle, the final score a respectable defeat of 9-6.

Durban Girls’ College will host the fourth challenge this weekend, (Saturday 29 August) with teams from around the Durban Central Regional meeting for a ‘play-full’ day of netball. 

For more info follow the challenge on various social media platforms

Results

Regional Final

Shayamoya Area Secondary School 17 vs Mthatha High School 8

Semi-final

Shayamoya Area Secondary School 18 vs King Edward High School 2

Mthatha High School 9 vs St Thomas Residential School 6

Round Robin

1 Shayamoya Area Secondary School 21pts; 2 Mthatha High School 16pts; 3 St Thomas Residential School 15pts; 4 King Edward High School 12pts; 5 Kokstad College 10pts; 6 St Monica’s Diocesan School 6pts; 7 Bergview High School 3pts; 8 Mt Currie S.S.S. 0pts

Majara earns maiden SPAR race win in Pietermaritzburg

Dikeledi Majara's outstanding performance of 35:01 earned her the top spot in the Maritzburg SPAR Women’s 10km Challenge, held in perfect running conditions on Sunday 23 August, at the Pietermaritzburg Oval Cricket Stadium.

The race saw a new champion emerge as Tayla Kavanagh, the three-time defending champion, was absent. Majara's first-place finish marked a significant milestone, as she had previously finished third in the Pietermaritzburg legs on two occasions (2024, 2025). The 32-year-old Lesotho International athlete who pocketed R10 000 for her effort, expressed her delight at claiming the title. 

Dikeledi Majara's outstanding performance of 35:01 earned her the top spot in the Maritzburg SPAR Women’s 10km Challenge, held in perfect running conditions on Sunday 23 August, at the Pietermaritzburg Oval Cricket Stadium. Photo by Rogan Ward.

“I'm so happy to win the race. I woke up today in a very good mood, and I was feeling excited to be on the start line. The race was good, as it turned out to be a lucky day for me as I won the race.”

"It's feels like a dream to win after years of trying to come first. This is the first time winning this race as I have finished third in the past two years. It also marks my first time winning SPAR, and I didn't plan to do so. Overall, a very perfect day of running and healthy competition from the ladies," said the elated Nedbank Running Club athlete. 

Majara executed a decisive move at approximately 2km and never looked back, as the second-place finisher, Malineo Mahloko of Maxed Elite Running Club, followed with a time of one minute and two seconds slower. Meanwhile, multiple Comrades Marathon gold medallist Jenet Mbhele achieved a commendable 36:25, securing third place on the podium.

The top three finishers in the 2026 SPAR Maritzburg Women's 10km Challenge: winner Dikeledi Majara (centre), flanked by runner-up Malineo Mahloko (right) and third-placed Jenet Mbhele (left). Photo by Rogan Ward.

"At around 2km, I moved away from the bunch of athletes, and they failed to follow me. It was not even a hard pace that I was going with. I didn't stress too much regarding the gap I’ve created to the second place athlete as my goal was to finish strong, "

This year has seen Majara achieve unprecedented success, becoming the first female athlete from Lesotho to secure a Comrades gold medal, completing the race in 06:12:29 and finishing eighth overall in the women's category. Furthermore, she won the N12 Ultra 50km race in North West. Majara attributes her outstanding season to the guidance of Nick Bester, athlete manager at Nedbank Running Club.

" I think joining Nedbank last year, my life changed for the better. They have been taking good care of me and it easy for me to put out a strong performance on the road. I must thank Nick Bester for making sure that I get all what I want. So far, this is the best season of my career, "

The race attracted over 4,000 sold-out entries and at the prize giving, SPAR KZN gifted the race charity, Dlalanathi with a cheque to the value of R30,000 comprised of R5 from every entry and a top up amount donated by SPAR KZN.

Results:

Seniors 

1. Dikeledi Majara 35:01, 2. Malineo Mahloko 36:03, 3. Jenet Mbhele 36:25 4. Bathobile Mkhize 37:54, 5. Banele Mabizela 38:09

Juniors

1. Anele Mtungwa 40:59, 2. Courtney Van Wyngaard 41:43, 3. Elizabeth De Goede 51:04

40-49

1. Makhosazane Mhlongo 38:25, 2. Mabusi Makhunga 41:43, 3. Rozanne Geldenhuys 44:20

50-59

1. Janene Carey 41:38, 2. Wilhelmina Du Plessis 48:29, 3. Anita Jacobs 48:42

60-69

1. Gail Babich 48:05, 2. Zandile Mtolo 01:01:54, 3. Aletta Wegener 01:02:47

70+

1. Blanche Moila 56:37, 2. Pat Fischer 58:23

13th European Film Festival South Africa Programme Announced

The 13th European Film Festival South Africa presents the latest award-winning, critically-acclaimed and star-studded European films for local audiences to experience in cinemas around South Africa from 17 to 27 September. As the world faces ever faster and enormous changes, the festival’s offerings from across the continent paints intimate, human portraits of family in all its different forms as vital to personal, psychological and social survival. 

This year’s programme boasts 12 films including new work from Oscar-winning directors Pawel Pawlikowski and Paolo Sorrentino; social realist legends, the Dardenne Brothers; BAFTA-winning feature debutant Akinola Davies Jr.; and intriguing, entertaining, always engaging work from both veteran and emerging European cinematic storytellers. Featuring impressive performances from the cream of European talent including Mads Mikkelsen, Javier Bardem, Sandra Hüller and Carice van Houten, and a host of newcomers ably meeting the challenges of demanding, emotional roles – the 13th edition of South Africa’s premier festival for cinema-lovers explores family and its realities and challenges across time, place and genre.  

Opening the festival is The Last Viking, with Denmark’s biggest star Mads Mikkelsen, leading the star-studded cast of this madcap, blackly comic Danish family-drama/crime-caper-noir about brothers, mental health, past secrets, the Beatles and getting by with more than a little bit of help from your friends. 

Winner of the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut, My Father’s Shadow (UK), British-Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr’s first feature marks the arrival of a vital, bold new voice in world cinema. Poetically realised with haunting imagery and bustling, vivid, angry life it’s a deeply personal film that’s a tribute not only to its creators’ own father but to all parents who daily face the struggles to keep their families alive and together at all costs. 

My Fathers Shadow ©Lakin Ogunbanwo

Germany’s offering Fatherland directed by Oscar-winning director Paweł Pawlikowski (Ida and Cold War), European cinema’s master of visual and narrative precision, delivers a tightly controlled, intimate, and heart-breaking portrait of German literature’s legendary Thomas Mann as he and his daughter make a journey across a nation trying to grapple with grief and the horrors of the past as the Cold War rages. Winner of the Best Director prize at this year’s Cannes Festival, the film stars Oscar-nominated Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall).

In Young Mothers (Belgium), the multiple award-winning Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne paint a small, gritty, and empathetic portrait of the struggles of young mothers. Abandoned by their families and society, these courageous and anxious young women support each other as they make the first of many tough adult decisions of their lives.  Winner of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes this year.

Young Mothers

Oscar- and BAFTA-winning leading Italian director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) reteams with collaborator Toni Servillo in La Grazia (Italy). Servillo won a Best Actor statue at the Venice Film Festival for his performance in this elegantly styled, intimate drama about fathers, daughters, love, duty and the eternal question of “who owns our days?”- set against the grubby backdrop of Italian politics. 

La Grazia - Toni Servillo - © Andrea Pirrello

Colours of Time (France), directed by Cédric Klapisch is a family drama that weaves together stories from one family’s 19th century past and their 21st-century present. A memorably delightful and touching exploration of art, family and history. 

Porcelain War (Ukraine) directed by Brendan Bellomo and this stunning documentary’s key protagonist, Slava Leontyev, is an inspirational Oscar-nominated film in which Leontyev, his wife, and their friend tell, at great personal risk and with footage they shot, the story of how their lives as artists were brutally upended by the war in Ukraine. Now, with roles as Ukrainian soldiers – they’ve never lost their passion for art and nature as they risk everything for family, nation and freedom. 

Oscar winner Javier Bardem gives a brooding performance as the fictional, acclaimed, mercurial Spanish film director Esteban Martínez in The Beloved (Spain). Director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Martinez returns to his homeland to film a colonial-era period drama set in the Western Sahara. 

The film unravels the fragile relationship between fathers and daughters and asks difficult questions about personal sacrifices made in service of art.

In A Family (Netherlands) Dutch director Mees Peijnenburg offers a powerful window on divorce in modern Europe, told empathetically through the eyes of a brother and sister trying to each find their own ways and hopefully a path together through the aftermath of the bitter war between their parents. It stars Carice van Houten (Game of Thrones) and Pieter Embrechts.

A Family © Jasper Wolf

Veteran award-winning Polish director Agnieszka Holland offers an energetic and generally bright biopic about the enigmatic literary genius Franz Kafka, in Franz. The film contemplates its protagonist, his difficult relationship with his father, and imagines how his legacy might be celebrated in the future. 

Ireland’s Christy is the debut feature from Brendan Canty that has picked up many nominations and awards at this year’s Irish Film and TV Awards for its tender direction and impressive lead performance from Danny Power as the title character – a teenager with a murkily remembered tragic past, who, after he’s kicked out of his latest foster home, returns to Cork to stay with his estranged brother. As he tries to figure out his future, he rediscovers the relationship with his brother and begins to imagine a home among people in a place he might yet grow to know and love.  

Christy

The extraordinary and original, Aquí (Portugal) is director Tiago Guedes’ ambitious, epic and suitably enigmatic adaptation of the Jesus trilogy of novels by South African Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee. It stays true to its source material’s humanist hopes, despairs and probing of the eternal philosophical questions that keep families and societies eternally (and anxiously) moving onward. 

The festival pays tribute to the tireless dedication and vision of a former co-director of the festival Peter Rorvik, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Peter was a passionate supporter of independent films, and nurtured a generation of film lovers and filmmakers across South Africa and beyond for decades. 

The 13th European Union Film Festival South Africa takes place from September 17 to 27, 2026 in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria.

For the full programme and schedule follow on social media or go to www.eurofilmfest.co.za

JOMBA! FEMME FORWARD Residency honours Women's Month with new generation of Durban screen dance artists

As South Africa marks Women's Month, the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, prepares to engage with five emerging Durban-based, dance artists through the JOMBA! Femme Forward Residency 2026, one of the programmes within the festival.

Running from 24 to 29 August 2026, the residency, now in its second year, is presented in partnership with Cape Town-based Darkroom Contemporary and offers five participants intensive training and creative mentorship in dance for the screen. The programme builds on JOMBA!'s five-year history of showcasing nearly 50 dance films, and follows the residency's successful 2025 launch.

This year's cohort brings together a group of women shaping Durban's contemporary performance landscape: Aluta Nzama, Alwande Khuzwayo, Andisiwe Mbambo, Aphelele Nyawose and Siobhan Wright. Over six intensive days, the artists will develop original short dance films exploring themes of identity, resilience and lived experience, giving voice and visibility to women telling their own stories through movement.

Louise Coetzer, artistic director of Darkroom Contemporary says, “we are delighted to be partnering with JOMBA! in this specially focuses Femme Forward 2026 residency and helping to skill and grow young female film and dance makers”.

"FEMME FORWARD exists to give young female-identifying dance-makers in KwaZulu-Natal the space, skills and support to shape their own creative futures," said Thobile Maphanga , Assistant Curator,, and coordinator of this JOMBA! residency. "Coming together during Women's Month, this residency is a reminder that investing in women's artistic voices is investing in the stories our country needs to hear."

The outcomes of the residency will be shared after the Forging Futures JOMBA! Conversation that takes place on Saturday 29 August 2026 @ 2pm, at the Centre for Creative Arts Board Room, Howard College Campus (UKZN).

For more information go to: https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge Durban South Regional - Hutchinson Park: Saturday 15 August

Dominating from start to finish, host team, Amanzimtoti Netball Club took the honours in the Durban South Regional of the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge at Hutchinson Park, Amanzimtoti on Saturday 15 August.

Comprising scholars from around the area, Toti’s Netball team took to the court earning convincing wins in all of their eight round robin games, netting 102 points courtesy of on-target sharp shooters, Hannah Grey and Micheala Clegg. Playmaker for the team, Tyra Norris was a firecracker in the centre, efficiently intercepting the ball on numerous occasions, and quickly feeding her attackers in the circle. Another ‘stand out’ player was their keeper, Zoey Quigley, who ‘towered’ above most of her opponents, constantly springing to life like a jack-in-the-box. 

The home team easily advanced to the semi-final, meeting three-times champions, Kingsway High School who have hoisted the trophy in consecutive years 2022 – 2024. The result was a convincing victory by Toti 18-4. In the second semi-final, defending champions, Kuswag Skool finished second overall and met travelling Hoërskool Suid-Natal who finished third place in the round robin games. In an action-packed game, only one point separated the two teams. Suidies took the game with 9 points ejecting the hard-working defending champs who scored 8 points. 

Long jump. Amanzimtoti Netball Club’s Tyra Norris stretches mid-stride to hang onto the wide pass as Hoërskool Suid-Natal’s Chantelle Coetzee desperately tries to intercept as Alexis Ahearne watches on during the Durban South Regional final of the SPAR KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5’s Netball Challenge that took place at Hutchinson Park on Saturday 15 August. Pic by Rogan Ward.

In the regional final, Suid Natal got centre pass, sending the ball quickly up to their post lady who fired off the first shot of the game with only 16 seconds on the clock. The ball arched over the goal, giving possession to Toti. Wasting no time, the ball made its way up to Grey who slotted in the first point of the game twenty seconds later. 

A quarter of the way through the first half, Suidies’ Chantelle Coetzee adventurously launched an attempt, successfully earning herself a 2 pointer – the only one of the game. At the blast of whistle for half time, the visitors pocketed their fourth point giving them a 2-goal deficit of 2 points. Midway the score was sitting at 6-4. The second half was littered with 1 pointers, with the fired-up Grey and Clegg adding 9 points with Suid Natal only successfully finding space around the jumper, Quigley to secure three points. The final score 15-7 in favour of Toti.

The tournament heads inland for the Southern KZN Regional hosted by Kokstad College on Saturday 22 August, where four-times winner, Shayamoya Area Secondary School aims to hold 8 teams at bay to secure their fifth title, the only team in the challenge with a 100% record. 

For more information, follow the tournament on social media.

Results:

Final

Amanzimtoti Netball Club 15 vs Hoërskool Suid-Natal 7

Semi-Final

Amanzimtoti Netball Club 18 vs Kingsway High School 4

Hoërskool Suid-Natal 9 vs Kuswag Skool 8

Round Robin

1 Amanzimtoti Netball Club 24pts; 2 Kuswag Skool 19pts; 3  Hoërskool Suid-Natal 15pts; 4 Kingsway High School 14pts; 5 RBP Netball Club 13pts; 6 Southcity Christian School 9pts; 7 Port Shepstone High School 6pts; 8 Creston College 3pts; 9 Kwamakhuta Comprehensive High School 3pts

Maritzburg Gears Up for SPAR Women's Challenge: Road Closures and Parking Information for Sunday 23 August

Maritzburg is set to welcome 4000 women for this year's SPAR Women's 10km/5km Challenge on Sunday 23 August, taking participants through Alexandra Park and the outskirts of the CBD. With such a big field on the road, organisers are urging residents and participants alike to plan ahead for the closures below.

Race Director Brad Glasspoole says. “We're encouraging everyone to plan ahead so you're on time. Both distances start promptly at 8am and we are at full capacity, which means there will be extra traffic getting to the start. We suggest participants leave home early and plan their routes so as not to miss the starting horn.'

Both the 10km and 5km start near Maritzburg College, following an "out-and-back" route that begins in Princess Margaret Drive and finishes at The Oval, Cricket Stadium.

Road closures and times, Sunday 23 August:

Balmoral Drive - closed from 03:00 -11:00
Princess Margaret Drive - closed from 03:00 -11:00
Park Drive between Princess Margaret Drive and Princess Elizabeth Drive - closed from 03:00 -11:00
Princess Elizabeth Drive - closed from 03:00 -11:00
Park Drive from College Road to Princess Margaret Drive - closed from 07:00-11:00
Alexandra Road from Cross Road to Alan Paton Avenue - closed (inbound only) from 07:00-10:00
Alan Paton Avenue from Alexandra Road to Burger Street - closed (inbound only) from 07:00 - 08:30
Alexandra Road between Alan Paton Avenue and Jesmond Road-closed in both directions from 07:30 until approximately 08:45
West Street / College Road (away from the CBD) closed from 07:00 till approximately 10:00

Residents: Those in the New Scotland Road area of Pelham will be able to access their residence from Campsdrift Road and egress via College Road towards the CBD between 07:00 and 10:00.

Parking: Event parking is available on the soccer fields off Prince Charles Drive (next to the BMX track), accessed via Alan Paton Avenue / Chief Albert Luthuli Street (near Alexandra Baths) into Park Drive. Additional parking is on the fields adjacent to Kershaw Park Tennis Club off Chief Albert Luthuli Street.

Race pack collection: The race is completely sold out. Participants can collect their race numbers on Saturday 22 August from 10am to 4pm at their selected SUPERSPAR store:

·       SUPERSPAR Greendale

·       SUPERSPAR Mega Edendale

·       SUPERSPAR Mega Parklane

·       SUPERSPAR Mills

·       SUPERSPAR Northway

·       SUPERSPAR Hilton Quarry

·       SPAR Nottingham Road

·       SPAR Breland (Dalton)

There is NO Race Pack Collection this year at The Oval Cricket Stadium. Goodie bags and medals will be issued out to the successful finishers as they cross the finish line at this year’s race.

For more info visit the official race on https://sparwomenschallenge.co.za/maritzburg/

Durban to host Africa's premier hosted-buyer trade platform in October 2026

Durban, South Africa: ENGAGE Trade and Services Africa - returns to Durban from 6 to 8 October 2026, bringing together international buyers and African exporters and service providers for three days of structured business matchmaking, exhibition and roundtable, and workshop programming at the International Convention Centre.

Now firmly established as one of the continent's leading hosted-buyer platforms, the ENGAGE event combines a programme of pre-arranged B2B meetings between vetted international buyers (who are flown in to Durban and accommodated) and African suppliers, as well as sector roundtables, workshops, and relationship-building engagements. Past editions have delivered thousands of business-to-business meetings across a wide range of sectors, opening direct routes to export markets for participating companies.

Unlike a conventional trade expo, where exhibitors stand at a display hoping the right buyer happens to walk past, ENGAGE flips that model. Buyers are seated at meeting tables, and exporters are rotated through them in a structured, speed-meeting-style programme of pre-arranged sessions - so every conversation is already matched, not left to chance foot traffic. Access is not open to the public. It's a closed space, built around meetings that are curated to result in business being secured - not casual browsing.

"For African exporters and service providers, the platform offers direct, pre-scheduled access to international buyers actively sourcing goods and services from the continent, without the cost and uncertainty of prospecting new markets independently," explains Rex Bowden the founder and Managing Director of Catalyze, the specialized international trade and event agency that runs the events. "For international delegations, it offers a single, efficient gateway into African supply chains and service capacity."

Exhibiting and attending:  The platforms invite manufacturers, producers, importers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and agents, as well as associations from across Africa and beyond to exhibit their products and services, across sectors including food and beverages, agriculture, fresh produce, natural and organic products, cosmetics, textiles and fashion, medical devices, home décor, technology, professional and business services, logistics, infrastructure, engineering and technology services.

The event is equally valuable for delegates - business owners, procurement professionals, importers, exporters, retailers, wholesalers, investors, government agencies, trade organisations, entrepreneurs and SMEs that are looking to discover new suppliers, build strategic partnerships, explore investment opportunities and gain insights into the latest trends shaping trade and services across Africa. Exhibitors and delegates alike will benefit from high-level networking, business matchmaking and opportunities to unlock new markets and grow cross-border trade.

Hosted Buyers: Qualified buyers from across Africa and International markets are invited to apply for ENGAGEs exclusive Hosted Buyer Programme, designed for retailers, importers, distributors, wholesalers, manufacturers, procurement professionals and corporate buyers with purchasing authority who are actively seeking new suppliers, products, services and strategic partnerships.

The events draw exporters, service providers, buyers, investors, corporates, development agencies and industry associations seeking new sourcing opportunities and partnerships. According to Bowden, this mix is deliberate: “African producers and exporters and their service-sector counterparts sit alongside international buyers and sourcing partners, corporates and multinationals, government and trade agencies, development partners and DFIs, and the industry associations that support the wider trade ecosystem- the full architecture of a functioning supply chain, in one room.”

"Behind our events sits a network built over years," says Bowden. "We draw on relationships spanning more than 30 countries; over 250 African exporters who typically exhibit, and more than 350 vetted buyers and partners. That converts into upward of 4,000 pre-scheduled meetings and 20,000 engagements over three days, connecting the right exporter with the right buyer."

“This event reinforces Durban and KwaZulu-Natal's position as a gateway for trade into and out of the continent, which is supported by the City's port infrastructure, logistics networks and growing reputation as a business events destination,” says Invest Durban’s Farah Goolam.

Registration is open now at www.engagetrade.africa, where full details on exhibiting, attending as a delegate, and applying to the Hosted Buyer Programme are available.

World-renowned dance makers to share skills and techniques at free JOMBA! Workshops

From 25 August to 6 September 2026, the Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) presents the 28th edition of JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience, showcasing an international and national line-up of choreographers and companies at Durban's Sneddon Theatre, Square Space Theatre, Stable Theatre and the KZNSA Gallery.

Alongside its main stage programme, JOMBA! invites the dance community into the studio for a series of free workshops led by choreographers and companies featured on this year's festival programme.

These workshops give dancers direct access to the techniques, philosophies and creative processes of artists visiting Durban from South Africa, France, Nigeria/Ireland, Spain and Jamaica.

Presenting the workshops:

• PJ Sabbagha (South Africa) - JOMBA!'s 2026 Legacy Artist leads an improvisation session built around listening: to the self, to others, and to the space itself.

• Mamela Nyamza (South Africa) - fresh from her 2026 Silver Lion win at the Venice Biennale, Nyamza's "Body & Sound" workshop turns the body into an instrument of vocal and physical expression.

• Vincent Mantsoe (France/South Africa) - shares his KOBA Technique, a "physical meditation" fusing traditional and contemporary movement in search of identity.

• Mufutau Yusuf (Nigeria/Ireland) - leads "Your Own Groove," a playful, inclusive improvisation workshop open to dancers of all experience levels.

• Iron Skulls Co. (Spain), with Tebby Ramasike - Diego Garrido, Moisés "Moe" Gordo Gómez and Ramasike guide participants through the meeting point of Theatrical Breakin' and Afro-Butoh, set to live music.

• Dr L'Antoinette Stines (Jamaica) - the creator of L'Antech, the first Anglo-Caribbean dance technique, leads a class rooted in Kumina, Bruckins, Nyabinghi, Dancehall and other ancestral forms, accompanied by L'Acadco dancers and drummers.

Two further closed sessions round out the programme: Ugandan dance artist Joseph Tebandeke works with UKZN's third-year dance students on access and belonging in dance practice, and the Introdans Education Team (Netherlands) shares its dance education methods with Edgewood Campus trainee teachers and with youth from the KwaMashu School of Dance Theatre.

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

Venue: UKZN Howard College Campus, Drama and Performance Studies - Dance Studio

1.Wednesday, 26 August: 4.30 - 6pm: PJ Sabbagha (South Africa) - improvisation workshop

2.Thursday, 27 August: 4.30 - 6pm: Mamela Nyamza (South Africa) - "Body & Sound"

3.Friday, 28 August: 4.30 - 6pm: Vincent Mantsoe (France/South Africa) - KOBA Technique

4.Saturday, 29 August: 10 - 11.30am: Mufutau Yusuf (Nigeria/Ireland) - "Your Own Groove"

5.Tuesday, 1 September: 4.30 - 6pm: Iron Skulls Co. (Spain), with Tebby Ramasike

6.Wednesday, 2 September: 4.30 - 6pm: Dr L'Antoinette Stines (Jamaica) - L'Antech technique, with L'Acadco dancers and drummers

All open workshops are free of charge, but booking is essential and spaces are limited. Bookings can be made through Thobile Maphanga at 2024jomba@gmail.com Open workshops are for dancers aged 16 and older.

More info about JOMBA! can be found on the website here: https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

Maritzburg SPAR Women’s 10/5km Challenge - Maritzburg Race Charity Announced

The Oval: Sunday 23 August A sold-out field of 4,000 runners will be making a big difference to this year’s Maritzburg SPAR Women’s 10/5km Challenge race charity, Dlalanathi.

Dlalanathi is a non-profit organisation based in Pietermaritzburg, focusing on providing psychosocial support for children through play by training and supporting caregivers. The organisation that started about 25 years ago was born from a personal journey of grief, dedicated to helping children and families navigating loss. 

Dlalanathi, meaning “play with us”, “play and be well,” signifies their mission to bring hope and healing to children impacted by loss through the joy of play. Their approach aligns with Nelson Mandela’s belief that children are the most vulnerable citizens in any society and the greatest of our treasures.

Through their work, they recognise the value of both children and caregivers, empowering them to be pillars of support in their homes, families, and communities. Their core values encapsulate hope, courage, respect, love and play - creating safe, nurturing spaces for children, youth, and families to heal, connect, and grow through play and creative expression.

Five Rand from every entry is being donated to Dlalanathi for their work in Pietermaritzburg and surrounds. They have a team of dedicated and passionate individuals. Their unwavering commitment, unconditional care, and ability to inspire hope make a profound impact on the lives of those we serve.

This year’s race will take place on Sunday 23 August with race pack collections for participants taking place on Saturday 22 August at the SPAR store that they selected. Goodie Bags will be presented to all finishing athletes on race day, as they successfully cross the finish line. 

For more info follow the race on social media or visit wwwsparwomenschallenge.co.za