This story tells of two great divides in South Africa, and how they are linked. One is the ‘big city opportunities’ versus ‘everywhere else’. The other is the divide between those who have online communication and social media, and those who don’t.

Poor Makhomeni symbolises so, so many villages and small towns in our country: run down, badly managed or corrupt, hopeless. Xoli says Luniko has made a big mistake coming home, and that she herself is getting out for a big city asap: “Why wouldn’t I want to leave this place? It’s a dead, small town with nothing going for it.”

And yes, there is a crisis in smaller municipalities. The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Zweli Mkhize, said in May 2019: “… that 87 municipalities – about a third of South Africa’s total of 257 – “remain dysfunctional or distressed”. He identified two problems. One … relates to the size and structure of municipalities. The other is mismanagement due to “political instability or interference, corruption and incompetence”. (www.thesouthafrican.com/lifestyle/opinion/south-african-municipalities-dysfunctional/)

But It’s Your Voice inspires hope. It shows how skilled people like Luniko, and leaders like Jezile, can empower young people especially, to find their voice, identify the local government change they want, and unite to demand it.

Luniko has a marketing qualification, in Joburg she found an internship, and she had access to free resources like JobGazette. She blogged and Instagrammed and had over 4000 followers. She could influence her virtual friends. But is her mother right, that in little Makhomeni, “Luniko will be fine. She is a graduate and she will find something”?

We soon learn that even graduates are living a half life in the small town: unemployed, bored, boozing in taverns. In their rage and disappointment, protesters have burnt down the library. The consequences are severe: “This was bad news. Luniko had hoped to visit the library and use their free internet service. … She would have to rethink how she would apply for jobs.” Xoli now has nowhere to do her matric research projects. The residents now have few books for stimulation and entertainment.

(Destruction like this is so short-sighted. There is no money to simply rebuild. Makhomeni will not get another library while there are hundreds of other places in the queue ahead of them now. The same goes for clinics and schools and administration offices that are destroyed.)

Let’s first discuss access to the internet and social media. Luniko is aware that her social media friends are fun but ‘virtual’, not real, and that a lot of social media is fake people living fake ‘best lives’. But the story is not about that. It’s about how essential internet access is for communication, getting work, and for activism. It’s about Luniko and Jezile falling in real-life love, and together using this access to improve their small town, where they feel connection to family and place.

In the world of work, first, you have to have the internet to know about most jobs on offer. Even ‘word of mouth’ operates mostly via Facebook and WhatsApp. Second, it is essential to have the internet to apply for a job. Most places do not even accept ‘walk-ins’. You submit your cv online, then you will probably have a telephonic or skype interview, and in the end be called in for a face-to-face. Job seekers need online access and free data!

Then, access to the internet is also access to new kinds of work: “… she also looked for jobs she could do remotely, like managing social media accounts for small companies, or blogging. She had built up a following while she was in university and now wondered what it was all for.”

What about internet access for activism and change? Jezile has been following Luniko, and understands that politicians and government officials can use social media to succeed. In Makhomeni the older councillor, and go-getting Jezile, “… thinks if he can get the young people on his side, things can change. If young people took more interest and petitioned local government, got informed as to what was going on, instead of complaining that the government isn’t doing anything, then maybe we can turn this town around.”

Luniko identifies one of the problems with this: “Maybe they don’t know how … Maybe they don’t have access to information that will help them.”

Jezile responds that she, specifically, with her social media skills, can inspire and motivate: “That’s where you come in. You can help them gain that access. You can help them become informed.”

Jezile is not put off by Luniko’s protests that social media is “not ‘real’ and is too fast. Great campaigns start and get swallowed by other news”. He thinks they could make a great team, with him supplying information and her sending it on to young people in forms they can easily access and relate to.

He also asks her to speak up at a public meeting, but she feels too shy, too newly home and unsure. However, that is the thing about social media: it can give otherwise shy and voiceless people their voice. Luniko disappoints Jezile then, but her later online poll about what small town people want to have in their communities goes viral.

Jezile proves to have been right when he said: “But a lot of people feel powerful on those platforms. All I’m saying is, if they could use it for good, to tell us what they need, to fight, then maybe we can get somewhere.”

Luniko starts to be inspired, ‘find her fire’ for a cause that gives her purpose in the town: “You could start by getting money from government for a resource centre or a job centre, help people get employed.”… “Or at least teach people to use their skills to create opportunities for themselves.”

The character of Jezile is all of our guilty consciences when he accuses people of not taking responsibility for creating change, for ‘being the change’.

As Luniko tells the radio audience: “A good friend told me that when you don’t take action for something, you’re automatically choosing against it. It works the same with change. If you don’t fight for the change you want to see, then you’ll forever be complaining about there not being change.”

Society is changing fast, technology is advancing rapidly, jobs are changing. Our population is mostly young people, open to change.

Linuko’s wise mother said: “I didn’t send you to university to … live an empty life. I sent you … so you could learn more, to open your mind and grab every opportunity available to you … Our time is passed. It’s your time now.”

Here is an online job-seeking resource: Lulaway Job Centres. (https://www.lulaway.co.za/find-a-job/find-a-job-centre/.) They say “… Through our partnerships with local small business, NGOs, and government agencies, Lulaway has established a network of over 200 job centres nationwide … Your profile and supporting documents will be uploaded to our database. You will also be photographed. Our head office will then process your application, and within a few days you will receive an SMS with a link to complete an assessment. … Once you have been registered, you will be accessible to employers’ work and internship opportunities.