As I start to write this article, I can see a sign in our office window advertising a Recovery Café. The poster quotes Johann Hari: “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety; it’s connection”, and the strapline is “We Are With You”. The sign reminds me of what Soot Semee listeners had to say about the importance of connection. Listeners I met when I visited the Soot Semee project in Northern Uganda, told me that Soot Semee helped them with trauma recovery by encouraging listeners to build connections with others.

I have to admit, I sometimes struggle to imagine how community-led radio could be effective in such a complex topic as trauma healing. I’m probably not alone in that.

So when this listener told me her story, I was encouraged and also a bit curious …

“Before Soot Semee, I was one person who could just be sitting on my veranda and I could just be crying. But now, I started listening to Soot Semee, and I heard messages that were able to help my heart.”

You couldn’t help but feel moved by her story. I also wondered how the radio programmes had had such a deep effect.

You can certainly imagine a radio programme being effective in other areas of health. For example a presenter can provide parents with instructions on how to treat children’s diarrhoea using home-made oral rehydration salts. But a radio presenter cannot similarly say, “today we tell you how to make a medicine that heals trauma.”

Trauma is described as:

“events or circumstances experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening, which result in adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and well-being”.^[1]

It is deeply individual, and often sub-consciously experienced. One person may try to feel better through substance misuse, another may withdraw from social interaction. Still others may show no external effect until something or someone triggers the same feelings of fear or harm as in the original event. South Sudanese refugees have faced community violence and war which in itself leads to many different causes of trauma. Many South Sudanese women have been subjected to rape or other sexual violence by armed groups^[2]. Others may have witnessed the murder of friends. Forced separation from family and an unwanted move to a new country also causes trauma. The broad range of causes and effects can make trauma recovery very complex. Despite the complexity, the listeners shared some observations from their recovery journeys.

The woman above continued her story:

“And I could now be joined by other people. Initially I was that person who used to sit alone but now, with the coming together as a group I work together and this helps me so much. Initially I always prayed is there someone who will sometime listen to some of the issues that we go through.”

Another man spoke and said:

“All these years I have been staying here, just like a tree that is not having leaves. I am one person when I sit at my place, just alone, I feel there is nothing anymore, I am just alone. But when this radio* came, I felt like I saw Jesus with my eyes. I used to have a lot of thoughts and trauma, but now, all these thoughts have vanished.”

As I say, I was curious. What was it about the radio programmes that they had this effect? After the group finished sharing their stories I came back to this question. The first woman told me:

“Some of the programmes have advice about trauma, and others call the people to come together and share their issues as a group. When you are alone it is very hard, but when you hear from someone’s experience it helps a lot.”

I heard other stories from the listeners who tried to cope with trauma using alcohol, or violence. Each of them told a story of feeling like they were alone, but through the radio programmes, or being invited to join a listener group, they began to reconnect with people and feel valued.

People working in trauma-informed practice talk about the importance of safety, trust, collaboration and connection in supporting people suffering from trauma^[3]. Soot Semee’s Council of Reference, the listener groups, and our partners Community Development Centre, who helped Omugo community create the Soot Semee programmes, are working hard to create this safe environment for reconnecting.

I’m learning that trauma recovery is a journey, perhaps best travelled with others. It seems like the Soot Semee folks are also living out the strapline “We are with you”.

Getting to know a Soot Semee listener group, Omugo 4, Uganda. Feb 2023

* Soot Semee provides weekly programmes as MP3 files. Listener groups listen to the programmes on Speakerboxes, or digital audio players. The Omugo community members call Soot Semee a radio programme, and call the speakerboxes, radios.

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I visited the Soot Semee community-centred media project in February. Our partner Community Development Centre (CDC) took me to meet with the Council of Reference – a group of people in the Omugo 4 village who oversee and advise on the Soot Semee content. Soot Semee programmes are MP3 podcasts on digital memory cards (SD Cards) played on speakerboxes (digital audio players). The people of Omugo 4 village just call it “radio”.

The Council of Reference shared stories about the impact of Soot Semee audio programmes. As these respected community leaders talked about transformational effects of the Soot Semee radio programmes it quickly moved from theoretical to personal.

One woman started to talk about the difficulties many women have faced on arriving in Uganda from South Sudan. They often have no relatives or spouse with them to help with the children. She said that Soot Semee programmes help women in this situation with advice. But more than advice, the programmes help people realise they are not alone. She said “also they feel that they have people when they listen to the radio”.

She continued her reflection, “For me this is something that is personal, when I came here, I was just as I am, I don’t have anyone, I didn’t know people, and I would have no opportunity for standing before people like this. But now [as part of] the council of reference I have people, I can meet, and I can stand before people and do a lot of things.”

Another woman on the Council of Reference said that she felt that Soot Semee was so valuable that it needed to be available for people in the other refugee settlements. But she also recognised that with this exposure came responsibility. “Soot Semee has made me a leader, I am a role model, so I take care of how I live my life as an example.”

I am no farming expert, but as we went about in the Omugo 4 settlement I could see very clearly that it sits on a very rocky and inhospitable ridge, it doesn’t look like good land for growing crops. I was told that attempts to grow fruit trees had failed due to the harsh landscape. Back in the Council of Reference meeting, one of the men told us that Soot Semee programmes had helped people to start farming vegetables such as okra despite the harshness of the land. Before people would have travel a long way to market town to buy such vegetables.

Despite rocky and arid landscape, Omugo 4 villagers are succeeding in growing vegetables like okra. Feb 2023

These harsh living conditions take their toll in other ways. The man continued,

“I want to speak about myself. Before Soot Semee [programmes were available], I would just be, my ears, monitoring where alcohol is. If I come for a meeting like this, something like [this] soda, I would just put the alcohol in there. Through Soot Semee, I had been listening, when the chairman and some of the others, they talked to me as part of their off-air activities and brought me some programmes about alcohol [abuse] and said if I continue like this, my life will not be OK. So, from a drunkard, I was brought by the Council of Reference to leadership. Now I stand before people and now I have been elected as a block leader.”

As I had prepared for this visit, I knew I wanted to better understand reports that Soot Semee programmes had led to reductions in gender-based violence (GBV). Its hard to get a comprehensive understanding from a small sample of stories, especially when the cultural context is so different to my own. However, I heard a few stories like Joseph’s story,

“I have two women. One of them is good, and the other one is not harsh. But sometimes it starts, there is some kind of problem at home. [gestures and local language reactions indicate he meant that tensions sometimes led to violence]. But when Soot Semee came, there were a lot of things [on the radio] about how people can control their emotions. And in our families, we tried and learned how we could change. Now for me, I would tell them, look I am a community reporter, I am also a community leader. I don’t want to do anything that is very bad. So now I controlled myself during the day or at night, so that I don’t do something bad. I will take it slowly, and now if there is some issue, we solve our issues. As a reporter and community leader, I want to be a role model, that is why I am doing that. I want to make sure that what I am teaching is the thing that I am doing.”

Just as the meeting was about to close, a man stood up and summarised for us the sense of purpose and hope that Soot Semee is instilling in people from all parts of the community.

“Soot Semee brought so many good things. What we wanted … trainings that come via this Soot Semee for us as leaders, so that when we go back to our country, we can help them as well there. … If you are a leader, if don’t have many skills, then as a leader you will not be able to govern people. I, who am speaking here, I am disabled. I am walking with these crutches. But Soot Semee has done very well, has brought in us people who have disabilities. Soot Semee did not say this person is disabled, they cannot be part of us. They included me.”

Barnabas from CDC closed the meeting, thanking the Council of Reference and honouring the huge impact they are having. As he speaks, it occurs to me, Soot Semee is not something coming to these people from outside. These people are Soot Semee.

Soot Semee Council of Reference group photo. Omugo 4. Feb 2023

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Last week the Soot Semee coordinators organised two days of community-centred media workshops to train new volunteers and to refresh the existing team’s skills. As well as learning media skills such as how to record interviews and make effective community service announcements (CSAs), the training workshop includes time to reflect on community goals for development and exploring opportunities to work together in other “off-air” activities. To mark the end of the training the community organised a peace-friendly football match.

So what exactly does Soot Semee mean by “peacebuilding”?

Soot Semee volunteer team, Nov 2022

Peacebuilding is sometimes understood as aiming for a cessation of armed conflict. However, it is important to know what everyday peace looks like to the community members involved. You might pause for a moment and ask yourself:

“If I were to think about my own situation, rather than geo-political events, what does peace look like to me?”

This is the sort of exercise that the organisation Everyday Peace Indicators does regularly in their mission to build bridges between communities and the diverse organisations working to build peace.

Taking a cue from their work, we asked this question to several community members in Omugo 4. The responses are interestingly varied:

Susan – “Peace is like staying good calmly with love”.

Idoru – “Peace is like for example if you have a wife, and you understand each other very well, that’s how peace looks like”.

Maka – ‘Peace is when there is always enough food at home

Moses – “To me something called peace, is like when you stay well with other people, with good security and no fear, that’s peace”.

Isaac– “Peace is when you live in a place that has no war”

Alfred – “peace is when there is money at home”

Margret– “peace is when every family member embraces love for one another”.

Simon – “Peace is when you live without threatening words of ending someone’s life. You stay stress free”.

Florence – “Peace is when you have everything at home”

Mary – “What also looks like peace is when someone wrongs you, then you don’t need to keep it in your heart because you want to pay back, but instead show your goodness to him or her”.

Click play to hear community members voice their responses in Bari and Juba Arabic.

You may have noticed that only one response refers to war, and just one other refers to threat of violence. The rest of the responses refer to relationships, food security and wellbeing.

Our partners, Community Development Centre, who lead the Soot Semee project, also belong to the South Sudanese refugee community they serve. They understand that building a place where peace can thrive means addressing all these everyday aspects of peace. This is reflected in Soot Semee’s programme planning and the associated off-air activities outlined below.

This month, Soot Semee audio programmes will address environmental issues, while community volunteers have organised activities to clear up plastic bottles and bags from Omugo 4 village. They have also made plans to plant new trees.

Trees contribute to a more resilient natural environment. They can also help reduce violence. A lack of trees has led, in some cases, to conflict over places to collect firewood.

In December, Soot Semee volunteers will focus on wellness with programmes promoting hygiene and sanitation. The volunteers have also organised days to clean up the water collection points along with the locally organised water management committees. Clean water and good hygiene also contribute to everyday peace as it is defined by the Omugo 4 community members.

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Peacebuilding near Lainya, South Sudan

Following the Amplifying Voices training workshops in Yei earlier this year, CDC South Sudan held community consultations with 5 communities or Payams in the Lainya area. This area is between the towns of Yei and Lainya in Central Equatoria State. During the consultation events, CDC supported the community members to make some audio content.  Participants were excited by the event and said,

“We didn’t know how radio was made. It was just there on radios. Now we are making it ourselves.”

As a result of the consultation, 170 listening groups will each be equipped with a speaker box. The project is called Studio Salaam (or Peace Studio).

People in Lainya area told CDC that there is a big gap between the local people and the army responsible for maintaining order in the area. To address this, around half of the listener groups will be in the communities, made up of community members. The other listener groups will be embedded in the local structures, for example, there will be police listener groups, army listener groups and local government listener groups.

Listener groups also make media content, creating recordings as part of their meetings. CDC envisages that the community groups can share their experiences of government agencies, for example how they see soldiers coming in and destroying crops or other local resources. Community members will share how they want to be treated. CDC expect army and police groups to explore how they should play their roles. For example, police will be able to talk about things in communities that lead them to behave as they do – the things that they see as not right.

The speakerboxes are seen as a safe place to have these difficult conversations. To ease concerns about safety, these South Sudan speakerbox podcasts will not broadcast the names of people speaking.

Peacebuilding in Rhino Camp, Uganda

Meanwhile in Uganda, in Omugo 4 village of Rhino Camp refugee settlement, the Soot Semee project continues and is maturing. Soot Semee volunteers are learning to optimise and adapt as the project progresses from a pilot phase to an established community-owned media platform. For example, at the start, the Soot Semee podcasts were played on a loop on large speakers in the marketplace. Some people found this annoying and so now the large speakers will play Soot Semee at set times, and people will gather to listen.

In 2016 when the most recent large scale migration started there was rapid growth of Rhino Camp and Omugo Zone. They were considered as humanitarian emergencies and large numbers of international organisations came to the displacement camps to support the refugees. Now many of these organisations have moved on. But there are still large numbers of people who have resettled in Omugo Zone and other parts of Rhino Camp, who are still facing similar challenges to those faced by people in 2016.  Groups like Soot Semee, which are set up by refugees themselves, are taking long term approaches to their work. The project does not end. New volunteers need to go through training. Items that break need repaired or replaced, rather than signalling an end to the project.

Hearing from community members at SD Card collection point, Omuga Zone, Aug 2022

The Soot Semee council of reference meets regularly to review Soot Semee content and provide feedback to help the project evolve in a way that best serves the need. Because of this, fresh new content is being produced weekly, and people continue to gather in listening groups to listen, discuss, and respond with recordings of their own. People use these opportunities to share stories of what works for them and could work for others. For example, listeners heard several people explain that they return to South Sudan to farm for a while, but it is not safe to stay there long term so they return to the camp. Stories like these help Omugo 4 residents to make their own decisions on how to earn their livelihoods, or how they can best support their families.

Livelihood stories on Soot Semee are also connected to a ‘microgrant’ programme that CDC Uganda is running. Some people talked about using microgrants to set up businesses making and selling soap. Buying in a piece of soap from outside the camp currently costs about one quarter of one refugee’s monthly income. With soap so vital in the fight against Covid and other transferable diseases, there is clearly a need for a more affordable supply.

Another regular role for podcasts is in providing feedback from meetings at “Base Camp”. Base camp is the part of Omugo Zone where the representative of the Office of Prime Minister works. UNHCR and other camp coordination bodies have their offices there. Base Camp is also a long way from Omugo 4 village. There are many different meetings at Base Camp. There are different people who attend and are responsible for reporting back to the Omugo 4 village. However, residents found that information was often lost in this relaying process. Some people would favour their own families over others when passing on information, creating potential for conflict. So one of the volunteers, Joseph Idoru Lo Baba, now records the information at camp meetings which is then given out through the Soot Semee podcasts.

Soot Semee also helped to prevent violence during a recent UNHCR verification process. Refugees need to verify their registration every few years to ensure they have the right documentation to be supported and protected as refugees. Soot Semee informed community members about the need to re-register and advised them how, when and where they could complete the process. In other locations in Rhino Camp, lack of reliable information sources caused a lot of confusion. People were gathering around the camp managers premises, and many didn’t have the correct documentation causing delays and anger. Local police got frustrated and there were reports of people being beaten. However, when the registration people came to Omugo 4, there was calm as people were aware of how and where to register, and what documentation was required.

Peacebuilding across borders

At the border between the South Sudan and Uganda, in places near the border town of Koboko, yet another community-centred media project is getting underway. It is a border project so the speakerbox podcasts are multilingual, discussing farming and sharing natural resources in Kakwa and Aringa languages. The podcast project is called Voices A 2 Z, meaning that it includes everyone’s voices. The name is in English because this is the language that is shared between both groups.  

Through CDC’s work, community-centred media is becoming recognised as an important tool for peacebuilding on both sides of the border and across the border itself.

Click below to listen to the theme tunes of the two new podcast projects.

Theme tune for Studio Salaam

Theme tune for Voices A 2 Z

A 2 Z and Studio Salaam are peacebuilding components of a wider project, the PAMANA cross-border initiative which seeks to respond to immediate Humanitarian needs, while firming up foundations for the the longer term through Development projects working on sustainable use of natural resources, and through Peacebuilding activities, such as community centred media. (In tech-jargon, this is called the HDP triple nexus!) PAMANA is a collaboration between several local and international NGOs, including Caritas Switzerland, Agency for Accelerated Regional Development (AFARD), Community Development Centre (CDC), and Organic Farming Advisory Organization (OFAO), with technical advice from Swisspeace and BOMA Project. The initiative is supported by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA). Amplifying Voices provides advisory and training support to CDC’s community-centred media work, along with some funding.

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Ting Chinese Character for Listen

But what does Ting-listening look like, or sound like in reality? We recently asked Barnabas from Community Development Centre in Uganda to describe their Ting-listening experience as they visited a new community in Yumbe district with a view to developing a new community-centred media project there.

I invite you to listen to what Barnabas said and look out for those five elements of the Ting character.

If it’s tricky to play audio where you are right now, here is what Barnabas said:

This is Barnabas, I’m the development programmes manager of the Community Development Centre.

Yumbe district is one of the new locations for our community-centred media project.

The community once hosted a transit for refugees within their sub-county. And the people are farmers. But many of the people are living in poverty and as a result there were tensions over food, natural resource … that’s forest reserve that is in the Kei mountains.

So we set to go to the Kei mountains to meet the people. The community welcomed us. We visited their homes. We visited some of the existing facilities that are existing within the community. We sat with them under the shade of the trees … the forests in Kei. And in this conversation the community started speaking.

In this process we heard a lot of things. We couldn’t hold, you know our emotions as we observed about the realities of the situation on the ground.

The forest reserve is so large so what happens is that the community … in the early years has given the government land because the government requested land for use for a period of time until the community population has grown, so they would have back their land.

But unfortunately they couldn’t get back the land. The population has grown so they don’t have a place to do the farming that they do, so that they can have more food for their families

And they want to also use the forest for building, and they also wanted to understand more about how they can be able to have other sources of livelihood and change their situation.

In all this it enabled us to understand more of what actually this community is facing. It helped us also to go farther and have conversation with the relevant stakeholders.

Right now the community is working together to set up a community-centred media project. And these Kei people will have their voices out as they discuss about their issues more.

So they will be more of listening to each other as also we have listened to them and understanding their issues and there will be more of working together with the community and the community working together among themselves to solve the issues that are affecting their communities.

Ting-listening is something that continues throughout the life of a community-centred media project, but it is especially important in the early phases, as we, our partners and community members discern together what to hope for from the project. The Kei project is currently in this early Ting-listening phase.

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I joined our partners, Community Development Centre (CDC Uganda) on a trip to the Omugu 4 village to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of Soot SemeeSoot Semee means “Voice of Compassion” in Juba Arabic podcast production. 111 episodes of the community-centred podcast have been produced and distributed since January 2020. We arrived a bit late but we were welcomed enthusiastically by Omugo 4 community members, and the event quickly got under way. A woman got everybody singing and then a local pastor said a prayer. A Soot Semee volunteer led proceedings and invited various project stakeholdersstakeholders are people who are affected by the project, or who have influence to affect the project to speak. The speeches were a fantastic opportunity to hear from a diversity of voices about the impact Soot Semee has been having. The Soot Semee team were on hand to record the speeches for the next podcast. And then there was dancing …

Some women from Omugo 4 welcome our vehicle, Omugo, 2022.

Some speakers were refugee settlers from Omugo 4 who listened to Soot Semee. Some were members of the Ugandan host community who also listen to Soot Semee.

Soot Semee volunteer comperes event, while another volunteer records for the next podcast. Omugo, 2022

I learned that there are 12 women and 6 men who are volunteers gathering content to produce Soot Semee programmes .We’ve always described the Soot Semee programmes as “podcasts” because they are digital files stored on memory cards and played on digital audio players or “speakerboxes”. I learned that, in Omugo 4, Soot Semee is described as a “community radio”, and that speakerboxes are just called “radios”.

We heard several people say Soot Semee has been successful in building peace among refugees in Omugo 4 village, and also between refugees and host community members.

“These programmes have really changed the people of Omugo 4. As you also talk of unity. As you come here you will see youth, women, elderly, they all come together. And there is also formation of [listener] groups as a result of this radio. If you come to Omugo 4 there are a lot of groups. Even in the host communities.”

(Ugandan community member)

“Since 2019, Soot Semee do wonderful things in this community of Omugo 4. Back then there were divisions, but since Soot Semee came, we are together now. Back then the refugee community and the host community have been in different positions, but right now because of Soot Semee they have become as one family.”

(South Sudanese community member, Soot Semee Council of Reference)

The representative of the Ugandan prime minister’s office (OPM), responsible for overseeing the settlements, said that he used to see a lot of bruised faces in Omugo because of fighting, but now “they are shiny”.

One area of conflict, gender-based violence (GBV), got special mention because of the huge reduction in cases. The Ugandan police official responsible for responding to cases of conflict and domestic violence in the Omugo villages said,

“All of you are talking about cases of GBV are being reduced. I’m very very happy that my workload has been reduced. … I am stood up to show appreciation that the workload has been reduced for me. Let the radio continue.”

(OC, Omugo Zone)

Maybe you want a more scientific measure for this outcome, but what I heard were huge cheers and claps, especially from women in the group, when reduction of GBV was mentioned, and a mood that indicated that GBV is considered unacceptable and should be eradicated. Through the mix of “on-air” Soot Semee content, and “off-air” activities of other service providers, GBV is being rejected as a social norm in and around Omugo 4.

The officials, listeners, and volunteers all took the opportunity to tell me they wanted Soot Semee to continue building peace and to grow in its influence, hopefully with more input from CDC and Amplifying Voices.

Another comment from the OPM:

“When Soot Semee came to our office there, we gave them a stone. They threw their stone and the stone landed in Omugo 4.  Who of you has ever thrown a stone in the water? How do the waves go? They go up the end of the river. So that means that Soot Semee should go to the end of the Omugo Zone. All villages in Omugo should receive Soot Semee.”

For young people, learning journalism skills has given them a real sense of purpose. They want to learn more. One of the volunteers said that he valued being trusted by the community. A community leader said he wanted to see the young people who currently report on local community issues to even go to Nairobi and report on issues there. But they are limited by resources, for example some volunteers don’t have mobile phones to be able to find out about local stories. Volunteers need to find ways to balance the time required for gathering community content and dealing with their own personal situations. This is a challenge for the project developing in a sustainable way.

I was asked to speak too. As I passed on greetings and congratulations from our team and supporters in the UK, I also picked up on the reports from community members that people are buying their own speakerboxes to be able to listen to Soot Semee, and others are downloading Soot Semee on to phones. Through local resolve and local initiative, the waves from the stone are already rippling out. We are honoured to walk alongside CDC and the Soot Semee team as they explore where this takes them.

As we mentioned last month, one potential new direction for Soot Semee is the route of return, back into South Sudan. As part of that exploration, I also visited Yei in South Sudan where CDC first got started. CDC South Sudan would like to introduce community-centred media in Yei and some outlying towns, building peace among settlers, returnees, and internally displaced people. We’ll pick up on that story in a couple of weeks time …

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Unlike the media outlets portrayed in “Don’t Look Up”, the Soot Semee project team at CDC Uganda have been working hard to create media that brings people together, fighting the isolation that refugees can feel during very difficult circumstances.

Preventing suicides

CDC’s work has been affirmed by a team working with the World University Service Canada (Uganda Country Office). During focus groups, a common theme emerged in which residents of the refugee settlements said that listening to Soot Semee had helped them not to follow through with suicide. They said that feeling isolated had led them to thinking about suicide but listening to local voices on Soot Semee podcasts talking about shared experiences, helped them feel more connected to people round about them.

Returning is still risky

Barnabas explained how this isolation comes about. Some people in the border areas have recently left South Sudan because of conflict. Others are en-route to return. There is a peace process in place in South Sudan, but many parts of South Sudan are not safe or peaceful. Leaders are struggling to implement the plan. Factions have weakened the political opposition whose job is to hold the ruling party to account. This has re-ignited conflict between other powerful groups. I asked why people are going back if that is the case.

Realities of refuge

Barnabas told me that people living in the camps find it very difficult to make a living. They find there is not enough food, and what is there, is not varied enough for a healthy diet. People sell portions of aid packages to be able to buy more diverse food, or to buy clothes. For example, NGOs often give out branded T-shirts to raise the profile of their projects, but for many people in the settlements these T-shirts serve as the only “special” clothes they have.

Families divided

In South Sudan, combatants would offer safe passage to the border, telling people to leave and be safe because very soon they would be able return. However, the conflict has gone on for many years. Uganda is a safer environment than South Sudan so some people will take the difficult decision to leave their children in the settlement camps where they can access education and other services. The parents will return to South Sudan, knowing it is volatile, so that they can earn money to cover schooling costs. Again, this is often seen as a short-term solution, but it has been happening for decades now. Barnabas had this experience himself as a child although he is now reunited with his family. But the practice continues, splitting families for several years and creating isolation

Building bridges with Soot Semee podcasts

In partnership with Amplifying Voices, the Soot Semee team plans to extend their work by having multiple volunteer teams working in local settlements along the routes of exit and return. Each team will support new listener groups who will also contribute to Soot Semee style podcasts on speakerboxes. Groups will hear things like verified news from South Sudan and the other refugee camps, and ideas for promoting peace through fair use of local resources. They will contribute their own ideas through recording community conversations, locally produced songs, and other cultural content.

Crucially, the communities can share appropriate content with other communities. So, while the local podcasts will be specifically relevant to each community, they will also bridge between communities, bringing people closer to each other and stepping up the fight against isolation.

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These elections are held every two years so that refugee communities can govern themselves while also contributing to stability in the wider Ugandan society. This year Soot Semee podcasts helped encourage participation while also promoting peace during the process.

To encourage participation, Soot Semee programmes provided information on how the elections work. They described how people could apply to be candidates and what qualifications they would need. The podcasts provided a timeline for the elections and announced who the candidates were.

Soot Semee podcasts also encouraged community members not to become divided but to keep together in peaceful co-existence. To support this, one thing that was not allowed on the podcasts was campaigning for votes. This helped maintain impartiality.

However, we were encouraged to hear that several of the volunteers who lead listener groups or organise groups to create content, ended up being voted into community leader roles, including the roles of Omugo 4 Refugee Welfare Council leader and deputy, and the Youth Secretary. When I asked Barnabas about this, he said that people wanted leaders who would ensure that their voices would be heard – and who would also push for good services in the community. The Soot Semee volunteers were not traditional big names, but they had been nominated because people had appreciated their engagement and service to the community. Barnabas told me that some business interests had tried to inject money to push for their choice of leader, but the people had chosen to go with someone they knew cared for the good of the community.

My own community in the Scottish Borders is running council elections this month and I’ve been helping to publicise the timeline and application processes, so I’m getting a taste of how much there is to try and communicate. The Soot Semee experience has got me thinking about how we could encourage more participation here.

The Omugo elections have gone ahead peacefully. In fact based on this recording of election winners being announced, sent to us by the Soot Semee team leader, Barnabas, the elections may even have been enjoyable!

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Getting energised at the workshop, Omugo zone, Sept 2021

However, Soot Semee don’t just repeat these sayings as mantras in the workshops … For the Soot Semee team, “make your shoes dirty” is an authentic way of working. At least twice a week, Soot Semee team members make the 1.5hr (or more) trip each way to the Omugo zone refugee settlements taking recording equipment to listen to stories and feedback, to support local groups making podcast content, and of course to hand over the latest podcasts on SD Cards to the Speakerbox listening groups.

When Barnabas, the project leader first mentioned the Council of Reference to me, I was a bit curious. After all, CDC is a registered charity and has its own board, so why did they decide to have a Council of Reference … who are they and what will they do?

Barnabas, told me, “They are like the board of the Soot Semee project”.

The Council of Reference is made up of respected community members from within the refugee settlements in Rhino camp and the surrounding area along with representatives from local service providers. Members of the Soot Semee core team are also part of the Council.

The Council of Reference’s job is to review the Soot Semee podcasts and also feedback they hear from the community to ensure that the team continues to be responsive to local priorities, and also that they are inclusive of people across the community. We love that Soot Semee are going above and beyond “getting their shoes dirty” and are truly holding themselves accountable to the communities they serve. We also love that they are equipping the Council of Reference to really understand and engage with the Soot Semee work. This is a fantastic example of building local sustainability through good governance and accountability.

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Barnabas said:

“Mostly the songs are about displacement, power struggles in South Sudan, the struggles of our people… and also a little of hope!”

“Sambara is a wheel or sometimes a tyre, and you know, our kids they use it for playing. It’s a source of happiness for them. The Sambara album talks about an experience whereby your source of happiness is taken away from you”

“That’s why Sambara is talking about issues of social injustice. And I guess I have just started a journey to talk about issues that affects our people”

You can watch the whole interview with Barnabas on the video, watch to the end and see a sample of the album launch party!

Streaming options to hear music from Sambara

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