Context

For numerous years, South Africa has registered recurring incidents of xenophobic violence. Contrary to the expectations that the end of apartheid would result in a peaceful coexistence among different communities in the country, post-apartheid South Africa has seen an increase in xenophobic attacks, targeting especially black African immigrants. Currently, populist and repressive movements have emerged in multiple corners in South Africa.

Scope:

The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung-Southern Africa office requires the services of exert podcasters in South Africa (specifically in Johannesburg CBD) to conduct a series of podcast episodes on the following:

• An episode detailing the migrants’ perilous journey from Zimbabwe to South Africa, while evading border officials to crossing crocodile infested rivers.

• An episode detailing migrants’ experience in finding their way to and round Johannesburg, while facing the challenges of finding work (often being engaged in exploitative labour), shelter, evading law-enforcement and the ‘volunteers’. Here, a focus on migrant self-organising and developing ‘early-warning systems’ is relevant.

• An episode detailing the volunteers’ side of the story and their ‘job’.

• An episode detailing the stories of those migrants who were unfortunate enough to be caught by law enforcement and get sent to detention centers such as Lindela.

Qualifications:

The podcaster/s must have the following qualifications:

• Relevant professional background.

• Experience in innovative ways of podcasting aimed at mobilising public opinion.

• Excellent communication skills.

• Experience and knowledge of agriculture/environment/Africa would be an advantage.

Selection Criteria for the applications:

• Total Price: 50%.

• Knowledge on Xenophobia topic as it relates to migrant exchanges with volunteers: 35%.

• Previous work and experience with podcasting: 15%.

Details about Applications:

• Experts from anywhere may apply (see also language specifications below), it may be one individual author, several authors applying together, or an organization/institution.

• Submit applications by 18 March 2026, to Siviwe.Rikhotso@rosalux.org: Project Manager for Labour, Economic alternatives and political communications and include the following information:

• CV outlining the candidate’s qualification and motivation for the mandate.

• Podcast episode breakdown design including description of methodology.

• Previous experience with similar assignments, ideally with a previously published podcast episode.

• Demonstration of alignment with RLS overall goals, a leftist approach.

Eligible experts are invited to submit proposals and a financial quotation (based on daily rates) to undertake this work. This must include all costs and expenses.

Time line:

• 20 March 2026 – application submission.

• 24 March 2026 – commission experts to begin work.

• 30 March 2026 – meeting between expert podcasters with RLS team.

• 24 April 2026 – submission of draft episodes.

• 22 May 2026 – submission of all final episodes with article.

The timeline specified may deviate slightly from the time frame specified in the work contract by mutual agreement.

Budget & Honorarium for expert/s:

Honorarium will be based on locally prevalent rates and may be proposed in the expert/s application.

Payment:

Payment will be made in instalments linked to the delivery of intermediate outputs. These will be agreed between the expert/s and RLS after the service contract has been awarded.

Expected output:

• Four fully edited and published 30 min podcast episodes.

• A 1500-word fully edited article ready for publishing.

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