Activate is an independent student newspaper serving the community of Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. It was established in 1947 as Rhodeo, and during apartheid became an active part of the struggle for freedom of expression as part of the now defunct South African Student Press Union. These days, Activate is committed to informing students about issues relevant to their lives, both on campus and around the African continent. We also seek to entertain our readers with lively reporting and commentary.
Activate is run entirely by a team of students, and students who are members of the Activate society write, sub-edit, design, take photos and market the paper in various teams. The newspaper appears every second week during Rhodes University terms.
Activate 
hi guys i like your website & i was wondering how can i join the activate society
hi, i used to write for varsity at uct, and wouold like to write now for activate. is it like a society, so you guys have news gatherings of some sort, do the editors send out srticle topics and anyone can chooses to pick them up, in short, how do i become a regular contributer to activate, or do u guys have staff writers.
Thanks for the comment on our blog. It would be great to have someone like you who has experience in student journalism join our team! We’ve networked quite a lot with Varsity and really like the team there and what they do.
The answer to your question is yes, Activate is a society. To start writing for us, you have to join the society at the cost of a R110 membership fee debited to your student account. You can join by finding us at our Activate table out on campus this week (we’ll
be at the bicycle sculpture near Eden Grove tomorrow (Wednesday) morning and probably in the Fountain Quad on Thursday morning. If you miss us there, you can sign up at Societies’ Evening in the Great Hall on Thursday 22 February.
After everyone is signed up, we will email you to tell you when the first society meeting is, where you can meet our editorial team and choose which section you want to write for: News, Features, Arts and Entertainment, African Affairs, Sport, or any combination of
those if you’re feeling energetic! We also are looking for subeditors, designers, photojournalists and marketers, if you’re interested in any of that.
The next step after that is compulsory training for two hours every Saturday afternoon for about four weeks. This is provided free of charge and would look great on a CV, but if you can show us proof that you wrote at Varsity, we might be able to waive the training so you can start writing for us right away. Story ideas are assigned to writers at weekly meetings in the evenings. Hope that tells you all you want to know.
Good day all.
I am Nqaba Malghas, a UCT student, I happen to have entered this site.I have no experience in student journalism of sorts or anything journalism orientated. I do however want to learn. I am also keen on exposing,reconstructing and,indeed, transforming the last yster struktuur of Afrikaaner Volkapitalisme. And for this I would need the buy in of independent like minded people across the youth spectrum.We need publicity, in our organisation we have writers and potential writers,how can we be assisted.
Interesting comment, Nqaba! What’s your organisation called? If you’re wanting to get stories from some of your writers published in some student newspapers, or ask them for some training, by all means get in touch with them. If your organisation is based at UCT, then approaching Varsity would be a good place to start. I’ll try to remember to send you the email address of someone at Varsity tomorrow to get you started. If you want to send a story to us at Activate, get hold of our African Affairs editor, Hlawu. She would be interested in the sorts of things you mentioned in your comment. You can find her email address on the “Contact Activate” page of this site, under “African Affairs”.
Hi, I’ve enjoyed reading articles from Activete and i would really like to join the society as i have a passion for writing.
Hi Sibonelo, thanks for sending us such a nice comment. Are you a Rhodes student? Unfortunately, we’re not taking in any more new members this year, and we’ve already had two out of four workshop sessions for our new writers, so you’re too late to join the society. Sorry!
Hi there,
As an old Rhodent, and a follower of Activate during the debaucherous days of my degree, it is good to see that Activate has gone online – well done guys. Keep up the good and interesting work – and good luck to everyone for finals! Most of all – enjoy your time at Rhodes – the time will come when you think back with fondness to the all-nighters you used to pull before that exam or essay – I do!
Hi my name is Mary Lusanda and my surname is Royi and i am Christina’s daughter and im 13 this year i just want to say that im glad to see my moms story on the internet but whats worring me is the fact that no body knows about my moms case any more and apparently people say that its closed and i still dont understand why would someone want to close it cause first of all i dont even know who were the victims and i would love to who did this to my mom. And il never be able to forgive them for what they did because they took someone who was very close to me they also took a person whom i loved the most, a person whom i thought would leave me when i expected it….But thank you to