Africa

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-…

Another community in Freetown, Sierra Leone is benefitting from the Amplifying Voices through SALT project (AVS)! Young people in Sammy Town have taken up the challenge to repair the damaged roads in their neighbourhood following a chance encounter with project volunteers. Sammy Town is a community in the hills overlooking the centre of Freetown. Two…

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…

Two years ago a team from Amplifying Voices set up a community-centred radio station in the town of Garsen in eastern Kenya, training a team of volunteers from different tribal groups. Ahead of the August 2017 elections, the station was designed to promote peace and social development. Today, two years on, Amani FM has become a vibrant part of the community and a powerful voice for peace

“The garbage situation was getting so bad in our town, that something had to be done about it,” says Harriet Atyang, the station manager of Amplifying Voices’ partner station, Amani FM, in eastern Kenya’s Tana River county. Approached by the Kenya Red Cross in an effort to help the problem, Amani FM was able to go on air and get a conversation going about the importance of keeping the environment clean.

Amplifying Voices partner station Amani FM in eastern Kenya’s Tana River County, has joined forces with another community station to promote peace in this conflict-affected region.  The project “Amani Mashinani,” which in Swahili means peace at the grassroots, involves young people in the design and creation of feature stories and talk-shows that promote peace, using the airwaves of Amani FM in Garsen and TBS (Tana Broadcasting Service), in Hola. 

Umoja FM, HCR’s partner station in Nobili, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is supporting communities fleeing attacks by Islamist rebels. “Our team are doing all we can to provide essential information to displaced people as well as support to the wider population,” said Station Manager Baraka Bacweki.

Children in their thousands are suffering significant abuse and stigmatisation, or even being killed, due to accusations of witchcraft against them. There are tens of thousands of cases, in many nations worldwide.

‘I’m not a witch’ is a powerful, new short film produced by Congolese film maker, Tshoper Kabambi, designed to promote awareness of the problem.

After only one month, the ‘Kickout Teenage Pregnancy” campaign (Piga teke mimba za mapema in Swahili) by HCR partner-station Amani FM in eastern Kenya, has been so successful, the call-in lines are jammed.  The team has been hosting talk shows, call-in programmes and getting out and about in the schools of Tana River County, to promote awareness of underage pregnancy.

HCR (now Amplifying Voices UK) joins with the AVS (Amplifying Voices through SALT) Project in Sierra Leone to celebrate 3 years of strengthening communities and locally generated action with a big vision for the future. There is much to celebrate! The project is actively working in 7 communities in Freetown with a strong group of…