Cape Argus E-dition

YouTube Black amplifies voices of African content creators

KESHIA AFRICA keshia.africa@inl.co.za

CAPETONIAN Sinikiwe Kademaunga was born without hands and deformed legs and she shares her life on her popular YouTube channel.

Kademaunga is among 40 content creators who have been chosen for YouTube Black, a programme created in 2020 to uplift and grow creators from the African continent.

She said making it onto the programme validated her hard work.

“I feel very proud of myself and the platform I have created. I feel motivated to inspire people to live their lives unapologetically,” she said.

Kademaunga was born with amniotic band syndrome, which affects one in every 15 000 children.

She is a social worker who started creating content five years ago and has 24 000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.

“I often get asked questions about how I handle my day-to-day tasks. I decided to start a channel where I answer all those questions and show people how I live my life,” she said.

Another YouTube channel, named Defining, was part of this year’s YouTube Black cohort. The channel is run by Dennis Ngango, Nomathamsanqa Plaatjie and Bongani Baloyi.

Defining started as Ngango’s channel, named Defining Dennis, in 2015, but changed its name and four years later has 189 000 subscribers.

The channel’s content focuses on Africa and African stories through conversations about how people seek meaning, connection, love, truth, freedom and purpose.

Baloyi said being part of the 2022 cohort was a big achievement for the team.

“It affirmed that we are part of the stories on the continent. We are grateful for the access we had to YouTube directly.

“It was as if we were studying at the university of YouTube, and I feel like we’ve just graduated.”

Jenay Aaron is a 20-year-old YouTuber from Cape Town who has managed to grow her following on the platform.

Aaron’s channel is named Mary Jem and offers viewers tarot readings.

“I started with playing cards and then moved on to the tarot deck. I later took time to learn the meanings of each card to interpret it,” she said.

The Mary Jem channel is a few subscribers short of the 10 000 mark and she was able to start monetising her content towards the end of her second year.

“I can make anywhere from R3 000 up to R5 000 for the month. You get paid per advert that is placed in your video.”

METRO

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2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

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