Iranti’s new junior Media Officer, Mogau Makitla (they/them), hopes to strengthen the organisation’s social and digital media engagement by bringing in creativity and a youth perspective to this work.
“I want to use my experience in youth advocacy and digital campaigns, and the knowledge and skills I have accumulated as a social media manager – and user- to help better position Iranti’s work so that it is more accessible, particularly to young people. There are people as young as Grade 10’s following Iranti’s social media and so the question is; are we providing information in a way that is accessible to them or are we hitting them with so many abbreviations and terms that they get lost in context?”
Mogau initially joined Iranti as the media and communications intern in June 2023, a few months later, at the end of the year, they applied for the Media Officer role and was successful. Before joining Iranti, Mogau gained advocacy and campaign experience working with organisations focusing on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) for youth as well as the integration of meaningful youth engagement on human rights and social justice. Mogau worked as menstrual health activist with Qrate, hosting workshops across South Africa with the aim of challenging period stigma and bringing conversations on menstruation as a gender-diverse experience to the forefront.
“In my feminism and personal life, I have had to constantly tackle and grapple with issues of bodily autonomy and consent. As a young person who was perceived as a girl, I experienced a lot of a lack of boundaries and seeking of consent around my own autonomy. Society does not understand consent, so as my feminism grew these were these were things I was talking about A LOT. So, my initial focus was always bodily autonomy and consent and the SRHR sector just drew me in and said, ‘come here’,” Mogau says.
In addition to their experience in youth SRHR advocacy, Mogau has a qualification in Biotechnology and Microbiology, when discussing their journey from scientist to working in youth advocacy and SRHR, and eventually media and communications they explained,
“I’ve always been a feminist, so when the pandemic hit during the last 2 years of my Biotechnology qualification, and I found myself in a position where I had a lot of extra time, I started volunteering. And it really just started with me following organisations whose work I was interested in on social media and when opportunities to volunteer came up I applied and entered the NGO sector in that way.”
One of Mogau’s first volunteer opportunities was as Country Coordinator with the International Youth Alliance for Family Planning. Due to funding constraints the responsibilities for role were varied and included project management, managing project funding as well as managing digital and social media for their activities in South Africa. This is where they first fell in love with media and communications work and realised that there was a need for skilled media and communications professionals in the NGO sector. As a young person who grew up in the digital age and has been using social media from a young age, Mogau flourished in social media management and digital media advocacy. They were eventually appointed as the Communications Lead for the Alliance for Active Action Against HPV (A4HPV), which was formed in response to the need for youth inclusion and meaningful youth engagement to raise awareness about HPV and eliminate cervical cancer in the Commonwealth by 2030.
“I didn’t know that this was work I could do as a job. With the school marks that I had I was really encouraged to consider a career in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Even when universities would invite us to their spaces to learn about the qualifications they offered, they focused on science and agriculture and didn’t really tell us about communications or marketing as options. So, I always thought that I would always have to do this kind of work on a volunteer basis and make money from STEM work,” they said.
“My parents would get annoyed with the amount of time I spent on my phone and now me and my little phone are my job now! When I started using social media, I was just sharing my thoughts. Now I’m sharing my thoughts and information, through a feminist lens for an organisation.”
Mogau’s passion for media and communications, digital campaigns, social media management is evident when they speak about their work. They are particularly excited about the incredible potential impact of social media, and how one post – when executed well – can lead people to a wealth of knowledge and information they might not have had access to. Even so, Mogau also believes that it is important for social media users to develop the skill of discernment and invest in their own digital media literacy, so that they are equipped to navigate fake news and misinformation online, they say it is important for people to seek information from diverse sources.
As one of the youngest members of the Iranti team, their big dream for their own impact at Iranti is to expand the reach of the organisation’s work and develop Iranti’s engagement with young people who they say are a large group/ community that is often left behind and neglected in crucial conversations and interventions globally.
“I don’t think that Iranti engages young people enough. Having worked with meaningful youth and adolescent engagement as a focus, I have identified areas of improvement such as actively seeking youth-led organisations as partners. It’s important to engage young people because they bring unique perspectives about the challenges they face.
I want the work that Iranti’s does to be more accessible to more people in general. I think Iranti’s work is so important and so meaningful and much needed. I have learned so much in the short time that I have been here. So, I’m really looking forward to us reaching new people.”