By the youth for the youth

A new magazine aims to help unemployed youngsters. By Nadine Botha

While iPads and tablets have supposedly been the death knell of printed magazines and newspapers, it is worth noting that people have been saying "this is the death of print" since the 1980s. These premature predictions are often based on new ways of transmitting images and information, but forget the other functions of printed material.

Just recently launched, Live magazine is a socially motivated design and media project aiming to offer work experience and self-confidence to unemployed youth. Industry professionals mentor the participants but the magazine is written, illustrated, photographed and designed, cover to cover, by aspiring young writers, photographers, designers and illustrators. aged between 15 and 25.

"I don't think digital can engage as well on its own," says Gavin Weale, the project's founder. "There isn't that pride in the final product, or the production process of pushing towards one deadline that can't be missed. And I think print has a role still to play for many years, especially here in SA."

Weale has been running the project in London since 2001. He was inspired to bring the magazine to South Africa after visiting in 2010 as a finalist for the British Council's UK Young Publishing Entrepreneur Award. He went on to win the award and caught the eye of the Shuttleworth Foundation, which gave him a fellowship to set up Live magazine in SA.

Live will be a financially independent quarterly magazine, relying on advertisers to bankroll it. It will offer skills development to unemployed youth .

"Young people who are stuck in 'the ghetto' their whole life face role models around them who haven't really made much of their lives," says the magazine's 21-year-old launch editor, Nicola Daniels, who grew up in Mannenberg. "You lose that sense of urgency or hope for a better tomorrow because living off grants or working in a factory is all you know. Then kids who go on to study have a problem, because jobs require experience."

The content of Live captures a sense of the times and the country: Jack Parow, JR, Julius Malema, blogging, street fashion, sex, social networking and employment. And, of course, cellphones, music, gadgets and celeb gossip. All of this is decided by the youngsters themselves, insists Weale, who demands that his mentors guide but remain hands-off.

"I keep saying to them: 'I have an opinion, but I'm a 34-year-old dude from London. I'm not your target audience.'"

About 50 000 copies of the first edition have been distributed of free to youth-friendly locations in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The next edition is due out in mid-February.

• Nadine Botha is editor of Design Indaba magazine. www.designindaba.com Twitter: @designindaba