About Us

The Takalani Community Radio, previously conceived by Takalani Youth Programme and the Aliwal North Legal and Community Advice Centre, Aliwal North based non-governmental organisations, as a youth radio station, was established during 1993. After gaining popularity and support among different sectors in our community, the initiative became known as the Takalani Community Radio. Takalani is a name of Venda origin, meaning “JOY”. This name was chosen because of its neutrality to the salient features associated with the area. This was prompted by a consultative meeting where community based organisations,non-governmental service organisations, fraternal organisations, religious organisations, governmental institutions, political organisation and youth organisations were invited. The community interest nature and character was then changed to accommodate the broad community, and it was then agreed upon geographically founded community radio station.

Courses that Takalani Community Radio volunteers, who form the core group in its Volunteer Task Forces, have been offered by organisations and institutions such as the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ), Bush Radio, Development Media Agency, Rhodes University, and the National Community Radio Forum (NCRF). Volunteers, who still form part of the initiative, have been trained in Introduction to Radio, Basic Radio Production, Documentary Production, News and Current Affairs, Feature and Programme Production and Programme Production, Human Rights Programme Production and Station Management.

As one of the pioneer members of the National Community Forum (NCRF), the station has a number of conferences and medium broadcasting field and policies that governs the sector in the Republic of South Africa. We have also applied for membership to the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC).As the time progressed to the final submission of our licence application on 23 January 1998, the station has significantly progressed in preparing itself in terms of human resource development and has been engaged in number of training offered by different training institutions sympathetic to community media sector to community media sector.