Picture: SABC Current Affairs host, Oshebeng Koonyaditse

BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI

VETERAN radio journalist Oshebeng Alpheus Koonyaditse welcomed the honour bestowed to him by the Gauteng education department recently.

Koonyaditse was honoured during the opening of new high tech specialised school, Curtis Nkondo in Emdeni, Soweto.

The sports complex at the school was named after him.

Koonyaditse shared the honour with other dignitaries those other complexes were named after them like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Motsweding FM current affair host said he was speechless when he was informed that the sports complex at the school will be named after him.

“I am very grateful to be honoured by Curtis Nkondo School. It really shows that hard work, dedication and determination will always takes one far to another level. It is an honour that you cannot even begin to measure and that leaves me with indescribable feeling,” he said.

The Taung-born journalist also works as sport commentator at SABC’s Motsweding FM. Koonyaditse was a former journalism lecturer at North West University (Mafikeng campus). He quit because he wanted to continue with his studies.

“Education is very key particularly because we need young South Africans to play a role in solving our socioeconomic problems. I have a Masters degree from North West University. And I also attended Edward R. Murrow Journalism Programme in the US in 2008. I have now registered for post graduate programme and studying International Relations,” Koonyaditse said.

He is also the author of a book, The Politics of South African football. According to him, another book could be coming soon.

“I am busy with research. After I complete my research, I will begin to write. Unfortunately is at a slower pace as I have to balance it with my work responsibility here at the SABC and being a student and a family man,” he said.

Koonyaditse pointed out that it was very important that transformation happens in sports so that it helps unite people.

“Our former late president Dr Nelson Mandela once said sport can unite different races. So transformation is important. However sports bodies should communicate their transformation programmes so that the nation should know where they are with the process. All of us should play a role and we should approach it holistically.

“Martin Luther king had a dream and Nelson Mandela had an ideal for which he was prepared to die. I simply have a wish to see us emphasising on our South Africanness rather than the innocuous differences that our skin pigments are,” he said.

-TDN

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