Emalahleni lad makes it big in media industry
Television producer and media creative, Shelile Gino Shellie, won gold at the annual Promax Africa Awards held last Thursday evening.
The virtual awards ceremony was streamed live on the Promax Africa Facebook page and celebrated creatives on the African continent for exceptional work in the advertising, marketing and brand communications space.
Shelile beat industry peers BET Africa and Comedy Central for the top spot in the Best Design Without Footage category.
It was a heavily contested title as it relied on design to get a message across, as opposed to the other categories where programme footage could be used to aid with brand communication or positioning.
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Shelile spoke to Mpumalanga News. He briefly shared his journey in this tough and challenging industry. Born and raised in Witbank, Shelile, fondly known as Gino, matriculated from St Thomas Aquinas School in 2008 and went to pursue a qualification in journalism and media studies at Rhodes University.
“My mission has been clear from the start, to reconstruct the African narrative. I believe that Africans should be seen as industry thought-leaders and pioneers, as opposed to copycats of Western ideals,” he said.
Gino left the mining town of Emalahleni to forge a career in an industry that is often overlooked in Mpumalanga. With most of his family working at Duvha Power Station (Eskom) or the eMalahleni municipality, he made a deliberate move to seek his dreams in the City of Gold, Johannesburg.
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Just over 10 years later, he returned with an international gold award that cements his status as a media creative. He wants to show his peers and those younger than him that all dreams are valid.
“As young people growing up in Witbank, careers in journalism, media or the dramatic arts were not taken seriously. “Most of my former classmates pursued studies in engineering, accounting and law. Pretty much the safe, good oldfashioned careers that our parents drilled into us.”
“I remember how disappointed my dad was when I told him I no longer want to go to Cuba to do medicine. He was shattered. I had had a private school education all my life only to waste it on a journalism programme,” he continued.
He has since worked tirelessly to prove that ambition, discipline and direction eventually bear fruit. Over his career in the television and broadcast space, Gino has done work for SABC, DStv, Showmax, SuperSport and a host of other smaller private clients.
His work took him to the United States where he was honoured by the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations and Education First for his work in community journalism.
He has trained over 100 schools and Love Life youth centres in previously disadvantaged communities across the country’s nine provinces, in citizen journalism.
