What happened to the Waka Waka diversity challenge? 

What happened to the Waka Waka Challenge of North-West University (NWU)? 

On 23 August, students recorded a video in which they celebrated the campus’ diversity by participating in a Waka Waka dance challenge as part of the NWU Potchefstroom campus’ Diversity Week. The Waka Waka was a popular song during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. 

The challenge commenced at 15:00 on the grass in front of the Ferdinand Postma library, the campus’ main library, where about a hundred students participated in the dance challenge, with bystanders joining as the afternoon progressed. 

The participants practised the dance for an hour before they started recording it several times to have various angles for the video. They utilised drones and sourced a filmmaker to shoot and compile the challenge video. Most participants wore white shirts with blue jeans, while the hosts repped the South African flag on their shirts.

But after nearly two months the video has still not been posted on social media and the challenge has not taken off. 

The Student Campus Council (SCC) Current Affairs, which organised the event and the recording, has repeatedly rescheduled and postponed the posting of the video on social media, meant to kickstart the challenge.

At first those involved said the posting of the video was held back to coincide with Heritage Day, 24 September. But, the video was not posted.

Another obstacle has subsequently emerged. Shakira, who performed the Waka Waka with the South African band Freshly Ground as a theme song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, has tax troubles and is being accused of tax evasion. It is believed that these difficulties will negatively affect the challenge, causing a further delay in the posting of the video. 

Beàtha Groenewald, the former Transformation and Diversity Officer with Current Affairs and newly elected NWU secretary of the Student Campus Council (SCC) said she is disappointed that the video has not been posted given the effort that has gone into it. 

Indeed, part of the problem appears to be that following the event, the SCC election took place and new SCC members appear to have less of an appetite for the challenge.

The NWU wanted to challenge every higher education institution in South Africa to demonstrate its diversity through the Waka Waka Challenge.

During the recording of the event, Groenewald claimed in her speech that the NWU Potchefstroom campus is one of the most diverse universities in South Africa.

Taku Chari, the Health and Safety Officer under the portfolio of the Transformation and Diversity Office with Current Affairs, explains how this event has evolved from just an idea to reality.

“When our chairperson took office, she felt that, because the Jerusalema dance challenge had gone so viral with schools and workplaces taking part in the challenge,” the NWU will be able to implement something similar because “our campus is so diverse.” 

Groenewald further explains that a place is diverse when there are different people, not just in terms of race, but different gender identities, preferences, personalities, etc. 

The idea behind the Waka Waka Challenge was to get institutions in South Africa to think about diversity and to answer whether they tolerate diversity by participating in the challenge. She says, “I value diversity in the sense that I get to know my fellow students better and embrace our differences,” and hopes that, through dancing, people can view diversity in a positive light.

Pieter-Jan Rossouw (20), NWU student and a member of Groenewald’s committee, helped to arrange Diversity Week and trained the participants of the Waka Waka Challenge. 

He says that “dancing is one of the most universal ways of communicating” and using a song as iconic as “Waka Waka” can “include as many people as possible”. The dance challenge is a way to embrace diversity on campus and as a country. 

According to NWU students who  participated in the dance challenge, the event was a fun way to include students from different backgrounds. Mosa Maboye, a student at the NWU, says that the song reminds her of the time she rejoiced with the nation during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, long before the COVID-19 outbreak. During the pandemic, everyday life became more difficult and people were isolated – she hopes that “everything will get back to that state” where people can rejoice together again. 

Leon Coetzee, a second-year BCom Chartered Accountancy student at the NWU, says the university is doing “very well” to broaden the diversity on campus through the various committees that promote diversity and encourage students to participate in diversity events where they get “to know about other people’s culture, and race, and gender, and equality.”

However, Neo Nkhumane, a third-year BA Communication student at the NWU, does not feel that the Potchefstroom campus is as inclusive and as diverse as it claims to be. She says, “I do not necessarily think that there is an involvement of all the different types of personalities, genders, and races that we do have on campus. I do feel like there is a focus on a particular type of personality or race rather than including everyone. There is a long way that we have to go as a university before we can claim that we are the most diverse university in South Africa.”

Nkhumane further states that the Waka Waka Challenge “could be a great campaign if they continue for longer and if they actually go around on campus and raise awareness about the diversity on our campus.” 

She questions the sustainability of the challenge and whether it can address the serious, underlying issues of diversity on campus. “Other than the video, what have they done or what was the follow up project to involve more students? Now it looks like we are just doing this to raise awareness about the NWU and the brand of the university. But what about the students and how they really feel about the diversity?” 

A third-year B.Ed student of the NWU, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that “when walking around campus, it is evident that there is a diverse group of students studying on the Potchefstroom campus.” However, she does not think that the Waka Waka Challenge would  do justice to the campus’ diversity.

She suggests, “The university and student councils should walk among the students on the campus itself and ask them how they would like their diversity to be celebrated in order to better incorporate their needs for them to feel that they are celebrated and represented.” – By Janlu Fourie, Louise Kleinhans, Jané van Schalkwyk, Robyn Kruger and Keletso Baas.