Uganda

Rose owns a shop in Omugo 4 refugee settlement in Uganda. It’s a place where people exchange news. Her ‘talking shop’ has just had an upgrade.

Soot Semee podcasts are proving their value, as more and more community members are finding ways to access the podcasts.

Soot Semee is helping refugee communities in Northern Uganda to protect children at risk. A large child protection NGO has been working with Soot Semee volunteers to help community members recognise abuse and know how to report it.

Despite Covid-19, Amplifying Voices’ partner, Community Development Centre, Uganda (CDC) continues to bring communities together. CDC’s Soot Semee project uses community-centred podcasts to overcome physical distancing challenges caused by the pandemic. Physical distancing not only prevents people from seeing loved ones, it also exaggerates the separation between people from different community groups. Barnabas Samuel, from…

This is Refugee Week. In Northern Uganda, refugee voices are at forefront of the battle against the problems Covid-19 brings to their communities. We heard about some places where the only information comes through megaphones. After a while this can seem a list of do’s and don’ts and people in those communities say they feel…

Just over a week ago, the Soot Semee team in Northern Uganda handed out first Soot Semee podcasts on memory cards to a community of South Sudanese refugees. At the same time, they distributed speakerboxes so that over 100 groups of around 10-20 people each can listen to the podcasts together. One of the community…

Did you receive a Smart Speaker this Christmas? – or did you get one in the last two years? Voice activated speakers like the Google Home and Amazon’s Echo Dot (pictured) have triggered renewed interest in audio media and boosted the popularity of podcasts according to Reuters Institute. Reuter’s research reveals that, in an image-…

In the last week of September I joined a great group of people for a workshop near Arua, Uganda. Some of the group are South Sudanese refugees and others are Ugandans. They have a plan to work together on a media project to improve community health, education and social cohesion in northern Uganda. We facilitated…

Day 2 of #16DaysofActivism I was recently asked why we are focussing on the issue of gender-based violence, as many people do not recognise the scale and the impact of this issue. Violence against women and girls is one of the most prevalent human rights abuses in today’s world, and affects all countries and all…