SERIANE: I agree with you, Roela, the connections one makes with others just by understanding and speaking their language is amazing; in fact, so much can be achieved from that. The tower of Babel in the Old Testament comes to mind immediately when the people could not understand each other because they no longer spoke the same language; the tower-building project ceased. We tend to underestimate the power in our tongues, the building and the destruction that can happen frommere words. This is a principle I strongly emphasise to students in the campaign development and digital storytelling module. Again, I learned the power of language from you and the various student campaigns you have moulded that won various industry awards over the years. So much so that all the student campaigns I have facilitated that were finalists and, of recent, winners in industry awards were rooted in language use, #ThandaUkuhlukahlukana (translated love diversity) in collaboration with the Heart and Stroke Foundation South Africa, was about how unemployed Ndebele women from a small town in Mpumalanga can share traditional African hearty recipes to reduce cardiovascular diseases in African homes. #MjitaWeHearYou (translated brother/guy we hear you) in collaboration with SANCA aimed to destigmatise conversations about the crippling problem of substance abuse among black young men in South Africa. ROELA: What wonderful projects. It reminds me of the orientation brief that the honours completed this year: “Design Bites” in collaboration with Professor Rozina Vavetsi and Deirdre Pretorius from the Department of Design and their honours students, and Mr Mxolisi Masina from the Culinary Studies and Hotel School and his students. This brief invited students to co-create a collective publication that reimagines and decolonises the curriculum by embracing and celebrating the student body’s diverse cultural backgrounds and languages. Through the lens of food and storytelling, students explored their unique heritage by writing a narrative about a recipe from their cultures, the story behind the dish and related imagery. The design students created recipe books, and the students at the hotel school cooked some of the dishes. We were also invited to discuss the project at the Creative Morning in Rosebank. It was a wholesome project, with stories, recipes and insights frommany cultures and languages. We hope to enter some of the recipe books in the Pendoring Awards. I include two slides that represent some of the quotes from the Strategic Communication students’ projects and reflections. The aspect of contrapuntal reading that moved me has to do with the unwritten stories that are not acknowledged in a novel but are still present, like a perspective in a book that relates to colonialism. 53 A Journey of Innovation
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