Jabulile Ngwenya is a versatile communicator and content creator with a keen eye for strategy and detail. Born deaf, Jabulile Ngwenya has a gift for words and language. A freelance writer and founder and director of Red Silk Tree Media, a company which focuses on bringing ideas to life, Jabulile is able to paint stories through her wordsmithery for print, film, digital and graphic media in such a way that the stories comes alive on the page or screen.
She enjoys crafting excellent content from what information she has in her hand, and giving it shape, form and structure.
A fierce woman who doesn’t let her deafness hold her back, Jabulile attended mainstream schools in Canada, Swaziland and South Africa. She matriculated from The Wykeham Collegiate in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal, and holds a Bachelor of Journalism degree from Rhodes University where she specialised in writing and editing, and in multimedia.
Born in Calgary, Canada, to a Canadian mother and a Swazi-South African father, Jabulile grew up in Canada, Swaziland and South Africa. After she completed her studies at Rhodes University in 2006, she moved to Johannesburg in 2007 where she cut her teeth as an intern at The Star newspaper in Johannesburg. She went on to become a journalist for the newspaper, covering lifestyle issues and news stories for a few years.
During the first quarter of 2008, while working a full-time day job, she spearheaded an extensive international humanitarian rescue effort to rescue an acquaintance who was caught into the midst of the ethnic clashes in Kenya and tortured by the Kenyan military to the point of threatened death for covering the clashes, and bring him back to South Africa for medical care before his situation worsened.
This successful humanitarian rescue effort lasted across several weeks. During this time she engaged on a regular basis with various humanitarian organisations across Africa and Europe to orchestrate the rescue mission. Some of these organisations she contacted and worked with include the Freedom of Expression Institute, the Institute for Democracy in Africa, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Amnesty International (Eastern Africa and South Africa), as well as ambassadors for the Norwegian and Dutch embassies based in Kenya.
During her years in Johannesburg, she worked as a communications specialist and content consultant for corporate and private companies such as Discovery Limited, Transnet, The Skyway Foundation and Shush Productions. In addition to her arsenal of writing and editing skills, she has events, campaign and project management experience.
She was the assistant project manager for the international Sencity Joburg 2012 event, which was part of the Johannesburg Arts Alive! International Festival in Johannesburg.
In May 2014, after having an epiphany that “life is too short to not follow your dreams”, Jabulile made the bold decision to relocate from Johannesburg to Cape Town, a city where she has always wanted to live and experience. In Cape Town, Jabulile is living her dreams. She is busy, starting up her company and tapping in the city’s creative vibe. She enjoys the great outdoors life, cultural richness and a foodie at heart, she delights in the smorgasbord of food experiences Cape Town offers.