Future Leaders, the reality TV show, in search of season two contestants

You Decide Future Leaders

SAB is searching for contestants of the next instalment of Future Leaders, a local reality TV show part of the company’s underage drinking campaign, You Decide.

Castings have been held at a total of 25 schools in KZN, Mpumalanga, North West, Eastern Cape and Gauteng.   Eligible learners were interviewed on camera at each school and the shows final five contestants will be selected from this pool.

Future leaders

Future Leaders is an expansion of SAB’s You Decide programme, which launched in 2012. You Decide is aimed at curbing underage drinking amongst young South Africans.  The 13-part TV show is a competitive reality series in which potential youth leaders are challenged with the opportunity to effect change within their communities and gain leadership experience.  The second season will air on SABC 1 later this year.

The show will follow the lives of five South African teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 years who have previously experimented with alcohol. It will document their journey to becoming agents of change within their communities and role models to their peers.

It aims to identify and develop young leaders while engaging the public and creating awareness around critical social and economic issues, in this instance, the problem of underage drinking in South Africa.

The show brings to life their decisions to stop drinking alcohol, to turn their lives around by creating practical and sustainable projects which will help curb underage drinking in their respective communities.

During casting, selected students are asked a range of questions on camera, which include how they would effect change in their community and country, what their future aspirations and dreams are and what their experience with alcohol has been.  Learners are encouraged to be as open as possible and honest in their responses.

An adjudication panel selects the Top 5 Future Leaders based on, amongst other criteria, , their vocal and verbal ability, whether they are solutions-driven as well as their mental and emotional maturity.

The five Future Leaders will be mentored during the season by winners of the popular SABC 1 One Day Leader programme.  Throughout the series, they will also have the opportunity to interact with influential individuals, including celebrities, business executives and public sector professionals, who will impart knowledge, experience and skills along the way.

The final 5 contestants will be announced in July.

Background

The You Decide underage drinking programme encompasses a series of activities designed to demonstrate to teens that the choice they make now, can impact on their future prospects positively or negatively. The programme includes a series of school visits, which incorporate an interactive industrial theatre performance based on recognisable social settings for teenagers, on the consequences of underage drinking. It is left to teens now armed with knowledge on the negative consequences of underage drinking, as well as techniques to resist undue peer pressure, to decide for themselves.

Results of similar campaigns in Europe and America conducted by ICAP, the International Centre for Alcohol Policies, suggest that strategies focused on any one of the factors that might prove useful in curbing underage drinking are not nearly as effective as a combination strategy. Their analysis concludes that multiple interventions provide meaningful additional benefit over single ones.

Facts and figures

  • You Decide has helped generate an 8, 3% (in relative terms) drop in teen drinking in communities touched
  • 891 schools have been visited in five provinces by You Decide
  • 489 146 learners have received the You Decide message face-to-face
  • The You Decide programme reaches teens and communities through taxi activations, murals, community workshops and many more touch points
  • The two main drivers of teen drinking are: 1. Social acceptance, 2. Escape from worries (home and personal)
  • In some provinces (like Gauteng*) 86% of teens as young as 14 are drinking

* YRU/UNISA Substance Abuse Survey, 2012

 More on the You Decide:

Click the links below for more on this groundbreaking campaign: