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Analysis: Looking at community radio in Africa

Mike Hickcox

Such lands exist in many parts of rural Africa. These are lands in which United Methodist bishops try to communicate with their district superintendents and pastors, and pastors with their members, but messages often don’t get through. These are lands in which health information is hard to distribute, but misinformation travels easily in daily conversation.

Effective forms of communication are powerful tools. They create a new reality in which coordination is possible, information provided, invitations offered and warnings delivered.

There are places in Africa where community radio has done all these things; where radio reaches the ears of those who live in urban shantytown huts, and those who lie at night below grass roofs on vast, dry plains. There are places where the needs of poor people are heard and addressed by those who care; where the community seeks answers and speaks them to itself through community radio.

In June, I traveled to several African countries to visit some of these radio stations. The trip was initiated by the Rev. Larry Hollon, the top staff executive of United Methodist Communications. Larry sees African United Methodist annual conferences yearning for better communication systems for evangelization, for education and for coordination. He sees that HIV/AIDS is a major cause of death in Africa, and that malaria kills even more. He sees radio as one of the technological pieces that can address some of these needs.

Zane Ibrahim

Also on the trip was the executive director of the United Methodist Communications Foundation, Elizabeth Hunter. The foundation is working to find money for worthy projects. The challenge is to identify projects that truly speak to the need.

The question is this: Can the United Methodist Church find ways to help its conferences in Africa reach the people, speak to their own members and alleviate suffering through the development of community radio? We traveled to community radio stations in South Africa, Uganda and Kenya to see what can be accomplished with a transmitter, an antenna and the right approach. Here is some of what we found:

South Africa

In Cape Town, South Africa, we encountered stunning contrasts seldom seen in other parts of the world. The beauty of the Cape Town peninsula is unsurpassed, with gorgeous mountains and tremendous views as the sun sets into the Atlantic over Robbens Island, where Nelson Mandela was jailed off the coast of the city for 18 years.

Not far from the beaches are the colored neighborhoods of small homes placed side-by-side. Also about the city are the black shantytowns of corrugated steel one and two-room houses tightly packed into fields between the main roadways. The people of these neighborhoods and townships listen to Bush Radio, a station of the people, created by the undisputed father of community radio in Africa, Zane Ibrahim.

From Ibrahim we learned a key concept: “Community radio is 90-percent community and 10-percent radio.” Bush Radio remains an ongoing community event. Every Saturday, the Children’s Radio Education Workshop takes to the air. Children and teenagers from the community prepare programming and broadcast from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Bush Radio personnel appear in the townships and neighborhoods regularly, bringing a meal and listening to the people. From the people come the issues and the programs that go on air.

When we were there, we traveled with Zane to the township of Khayelitsha, the third largest township in South Africa after Soweto and Sharpeville. On this Bush Radio workday, interns from the University of Southern California scampered across several rooftops in the township, fastening plastic tarps over the corrugated steel roofs, covering seams and holes to keep out the rain.

Uganda

Traveling in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, we found MAMA FM behind high walls on a residential hillside. This station was created in the late 1990s by the Uganda Media Women's Association. It was the first station in Africa to be initiated and created by women. Calling itself “The Voice to Listen To,” MAMA FM focuses on the needs of women and the poor, and addresses issues such as health care, legal concerns, land, economic empowerment, education, human rights, good governance, leadership, religion, agriculture, peace building, environment and politics. The women journalists bring in experts to speak about these issues. The station also holds public forums.

Also in Kampala, Radio Maria Uganda operates on a different model as a part of a project founded by the Roman Catholic Church in 1983. Radio Maria worldwide operates in more than 30 nations. Radio Maria Uganda also has the technical resources of the larger church available to it, and it extends itself to two repeater stations and two other studios in the country by a satellite link. Broadcasting from a total of five locations allows much better coverage across the country of Uganda. This station also focuses on the issues that face the communities.

The Seventh-Day Adventist Church runs Prime Radio high atop a Kampala hill. This station is funded largely by a successful communication school it operates in one section of its building. The remainder of the building houses the radio station and has space allotted for a future television station. Like the other stations visited, Prime Radio depends on volunteer assistance, but also employs 34 people, far more than other stations we visited.

Kenya

After arriving in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, another flight took us to Kisumu, a small city in Western Kenya on the shore of Lake Victoria. In a small house, with a yard populated by dogs and chickens, is RECA Radio. This station is an outgrowth of Relief & Environmental Care Africa, a nongovernmental organization based in Kenya that promotes environmental protection, sustainable development, literacy and health care.

This station is due to go on air this fall. Most of its programming will be locally produced, with a small percentage delivered by satellite from a health-focused agency in the United States.

As in several other locations, programming needs will be defined with input from the women’s groups in the surrounding villages. Those groups are already involved in RECA projects for microfinance, agriculture, water and sanitation. The radio station is an outgrowth of the existing health and welfare programs and will be a way to extend the reach of these programs.

EcoNews Africa is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, but with radio stations also in Tanzania and Uganda. Uganda’s station went on the air in 2000, Tanzania in 2002 and Kenya in 2004.

The programming of each station is determined with the support and direction of women’s groups in the villages of the listening areas. These stations also focus on social issues and health, with an emphasis on the needs and resources of women.

Despite the significant use of volunteers, each station still costs the parent organization about $150,000 each year.

Looking ahead

Visiting community radio stations in Africa and the people who operate them yielded a number of common factors and truths. Among them are these:

• Radio reaches people wherever they live, in both urban shantytowns and in rural villages.
• Radio communicates with everyone, even those who cannot read.
• Radio needs to communicate in many languages, including the local colonial language (English, French, and Portuguese), Kiswahili and local languages.
• Community radio needs to empower and use the collective power of women’s groups in the region.
• Radio is an excellent way to deliver accurate information on health care, and it helps to counter much of the misinformation commonly distributed in conversation.
• Community radio in Africa needs money to maintain equipment and facilities, pay a few staff members, and purchase fuel to operate studios and transmitters when the power system fails.

United Methodist Communications is finding new ways to partner with other organizations to better bring health information to Africa. This trip was a significant step in learning how our annual conferences in Africa will be able to broadcast not only to spread the Gospel, but also to coordinate the work of the annual conference, serve the needs of the community, and improve quality of life in both city and countryside.

Community radio is just one possible component of the communication solution, and issues of staffing, financial support and sustainability must be addressed. Cell phones, ham radio, business radio, and the Internet may also be necessary pieces of the answer.

Watch for news stories about UMCom’s communication efforts in Africa. The communicators and the annual conferences in Africa are eager to develop systems that work where they are. United Methodist Communications is eager to help. Once plans and funding are in place, exciting things will happen.

*Hickcox is director of audio and radio ministries at United Methodist Communications.

News media contact: Mike Hickcox, (615) 742-5110 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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Resources

Central Conference Communications Initiative

Foundation for United Methodist Communications