During the time of the project, many things happened in the station’s broadcast area that meant the focus of an area had to change slightly. For example, we had planned on doing some work in Woolloomooloo but then the NSW Government decided to sell off Millers Point housing estate and…
Leichhardt used to be a neighbourhood where you knew all your neighbours. In our Leichhardt edition of There Goes the Neighbourhood, one resident states, ‘My grandparents live next door and my uncle lives across the road.’ Leichhardt is known for being a tight-knit community of (mostly) Italian migrants. The influx of Italians…
Another area that many say is likely to lose most of its state-owned housing in Glebe. Home to Indigenous, migrant and working class families for decades, Glebe has history with urban development that makes it an interesting case of both renewal and gentrification. In the 1970s, housing owned by the…
The struggle being fought in Redfern right now goes much deeper than locals vs. yuppies. This fight is about the situation of Indigenous people in Australia and their right to their land. Deemed the most unliveable part of Sydney in the 1960s, Redfern was an industrial precinct that became the…
About In 2013, Radio Skid Row celebrated its 30th birthday. Over the years, we’ve watched our broadcast area change…A LOT. Two years earlier, an incident occurred in Marrickville. A brick was thrown through the window of a new café, and the words “F**K OFF YUPPIES” were graffitied on the wall. The…
The Federal seat of Grayndler has been held by the Labor party since its inception in 1949. A traditionally working class area, gentrification has seen the rise in more yuppie-skewed politics in recent years. The more liberal residents have caused a rise in the Greens votership, while conservatives made their…
In May 2014, a Tent Embassy was established on The Block in opposition to the Pemulwuy Development Project. Supported by the Aboriginal Housing Company the development proposes new university housing, commercial businesses and inner city housing in the much sought after Redfern. This involves selling off the land that was…
Early listeners of Afrika Connexions will remember the music of The African Dawn. A beautiful mix of politics, poetry and traditional instruments, African Dawn represented a growing Pan African movement, which had established itself in London rallying alongside the liberation struggles around the world. In 1986, Kenyan actress and poet…
About Afrika Connexions The Afrika Connexions Story is an online tribute to a radio program that is now more than 30 years old. Starting as a radical, anti-apartheid program on Radio Skid Row, the show has expanded to embrace every wave of African migrants to Australia. On any Sunday you…
One of the efforts to take Afrika Connexions beyond the studio began with a hut in the Addison Rd Community Centre where Radio Skid Row is located. Named Afrika House, Paul Thusi started the hut in the 90s in an effort to establish a communal meeting space for those who…
Afrika Connexions is not only a successful community radio program. As a focal point for the wider African community of Sydney, Radio Skid Row has both initiated and been involved in many activities and events celebrating the diverse cultures of its listeners and supporters as well as providing inspiration and…
There’s a story that Peter Tosh learnt to play the guitar as a young boy by watching a man play the same song for half a day. He memorised everything the man did until the man gave him the guitar to have a turn. When he played the tune perfectly,…
Born in Mozambique, Mingas began singing at a young age in her church. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s she had great success as a lead vocalist for the Orchestra Star de Mozambique and also toured the world as a support singer for Miriam Makeba. This song, written by Fany Mfumo – also from Mozambique…
African Dawn was a London-based ensemble made up of people from all over Africa and the Middle East. They released two albums, and probably the only place you would have heard them in Australia was in Sydney on Radio Skid Row. Check out the interview with Wanjiku Wa Kiarie who…
At an opening of Barbara McGrady’s photographic exhibition at the Redfern Community Centre, Gary Foley said that one of her photos was worth thousands of pages written by historians like himself. At the same time, Gary noted that while there are many community photographers, Barbara’s photos were different because they…