ON a mission to tell stories of ordinary people, KwaSwayimane poet and social entrepreneur Kyle Allan (28) established a news and culture website in order to be the voice of the marginalised.
Allan founded www.thesibali.co.za a few months ago after seeing that although there are a lot of news websites in the country, not many tell stories of people at grassroots level.
The website focuses on South African current affairs, entertainment, arts and culture, with a special emphasis on KwaZulu-Natal and the Midlands. Married to Thobeka Zondi from KwaSwayimane, Allan is known as usibali (brother-in-law) of the KwaSwayimane community. “As a poet and a writer I felt that although we have various media platforms, there are not many that speak about ordinary citizens. With a new breed of media consumers deciding to focus on online rather than the print content, I decided to create a website that appeals to different media consumers regardless of one’s buying power.
“Currently we source most of our current affairs news from the News 24, however, I’m working to get more contributors who will get news from communities. We speak about arts, culture and developing artists especially in the Midlands.
“The website is more about telling untold stories of KZN and opening a platform for the marginalised to speak about their life experiences. I decided to call it ‘brother-in-law’ because I want people to treat it as someone they can rely on and speak to. It is not dominated by certain power groups, it is there for everyone and is something that most people can relate to. I wanted to create a new independent voice in the landscape of South African media.”
