Nyambura and others think harmful stereotypes have been around so long that many people in Tana River now believe them. She traces this back to the early days of Kenya’s independence, when President Jomo Kenyatta prioritised developing regions with rich agriculture, leaving drier areas like Tana River neglected. “This neglect,” Nyambura explains, “allowed damaging labels to stick—terms even used by aid groups and the media.” Over time, phrases like “unproductive and unskilled,” “conflict-prone,” “backward and isolated,” and “dependent on aid” have unfairly defined the region. Nyambura warns, “These narratives create a victim mentality, making people feel powerless to change their circumstances or challenge those in power.” 

Even journalists at Vox Radio sometimes reinforce these ideas. “It’s too easy to see Tanarians as victims instead of resilient people overcoming challenges,” says Nyambura. That’s why Vox Radio focuses on “solutions journalism,” which highlights how communities are solving their problems instead of only reporting the issues. “We need to listen to people, let them tell their stories, and showcase their strengths.”

Nyambura shared a story about Yoash, a Vox journalist whose farming show is helping change perceptions. One destructive narrative he challenges is the idea that pastoralists (from the Orma community) and farmers (from the Pokomo community) are enemies competing for resources. Yoash’s programs bring members of both groups together to discuss shared challenges and find solutions. He also highlights success stories, like a pastoralist couple (pictured above) who had set up a business of turning the parts of the animals that are usually discarded, like horns, bones and hoofs, into stunning ornaments and jewellery. After appearing on his show, they received many calls from listeners eager to learn more or buy their creations.

When Amplifying Voices initially set up Vox Radio in 2017 (formerly Amani FM), in partnership with the Amani Centre, its purpose was to build peace and disrupt the narrative of conflict that had plagued the region for many decades. With peace now taking root in Tana River County, the airwaves of Vox Radio are alive with a renewed sense of purpose and a new mission: to inspire Tana River’s communities to thrive – with a new narrative. One where farmers share sustainable practices, young entrepreneurs showcase their ideas, and elders envision a brighter future. Vox Radio has become more than a platform—it’s a symbol of hope, encouraging people to dream beyond peace and work toward lasting prosperity.

The post Tana River – a new narrative appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

In 2022, Amplifying Voices Pakistan helped a local pastor and his wife to start sewing classes in a rural village to help women to build skills for earning. These Roshan Ghar classes also became a place for talking about problems many of the women had in common – especially issues affecting the health and wellbeing of families. Some of those conversations led to health camps and a mobile health clinic to take conversations into people’s home. Other conversations were recorded, as were interviews with health professionals, and then put together into conversational education programmes. Women would listen to the programmes on speakerboxes during the sewing classes.

Hazeen Latif and his team from Amplifying Voices Pakistan supported the group by teaching interview skills, recording skills, and editing skills. As the quality got better and better, Hazeen introduced Roshan Ghar’s programmes to a local radio station. These weekly 10-minute slots became popular and the station invited the group leaders to join them for a live show on International Women’s Day in March this year. The sewing teacher went along with Rimshah, the health worker. They were a little nervous about being live on air, so Hazeen joined them.

The live show received lots calls from listeners who were excited to hear women from villages like their own in the studio alongside the professionals. The Roshan Ghar women were creating an atmosphere of possibility.

The radio station called them back for another live show in June. This time focussing on the Roshan Ghar project and the partnership with Amplifying Voices. The local station started to invite the Roshan Ghar team for monthly live shows.

A show in August focussed on neurological conditions. The mobile health clinic had found several families with children suffering from epilepsy but who did not understand what was happening to their children. Two of these women came and spoke on the show. One lady shared about her son being excluded from school because he had fits. They also shared about the advice and treatment they had received from the lady health worker and volunteer doctors visiting the village.

The women spoke with Hazeen later saying:

“before we felt ashamed [of our children’s conditions], but now we can talk about taking care of our children.”

… not just in the sewing class but live on air.

More women from the village are now taking part in monthly live shows accompanied by local project leaders, but no longer needing to have Hazeen or anyone from the Amplifying Voices Pakistan team with them.

“Before we could not talk to other men or people outside our village, but now we get such a confidence that we can talk to anyone.”

Listeners also feel like the Roshan Ghar women are opening new doors for them:

“You talk about things that are taboo – like skin rashes in private areas, and intestinal worms – we learned a lot from you.”

“Especially about toilets – the importance of keeping toilets clean. Most radio programmes are about glamourous topics and don’t touch on things like this.”

Yet, these are topics that make a difference in rural communities. In recent years there have been several projects or campaigns to provide latrines for village homes, but often without a corresponding rollout of advice on care or maintenance. As a result, toilets had become unhygienic and a source of illness. These women, who are not afraid to talk about the unpleasant, are helping people stay healthier.

The programmes continue. Often drawing out the wisdom within the villages as well as accessing the medical experts.

“Next we want to hear about smog and lung diseases, and especially about home remedies for building resistance to the effects of smog.”

The post Opening doors in Sargodha appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

Simooya Community Radio, Pemba District

Amplifying Voices partnered with the Chibozu Community Trust, an NGO registered in Zambia and the UK, to set up Simooya Community Radio station which went into its testing phase in April 2024.  The station provides education for children and adults, culturally relevant entertainment and dialogue, covering the Pemba district of Southern Zambia and serves a rural population of 81,000 people.

Chibozu Community Trust has employed a station manager and recruited a team of enthusiastic volunteers from Simooya village.  The radio team is responsible for engaging community members and local service providers to create content and develop the station as a locally sustainable non-profit community resource.

Context

Simooya Village is rurally located in the Southern Province of Zambia, where high levels of poverty create significant health risks. The nearest town to Simooya is Choma, on the main road from the capital Lusaka. Choma is quite accessible. Simooya and its 12 surrounding villages are not. The majority of people in these villages are subsistence farmers. Due to drought, and increased food prices, families spend around 65% of income on basic food needs.

However, Simooya community members want to change the outsiders' perception that they are too poor to help themselves. Their new radio station aims to equip villagers' own development initiatives, working towards “fullness of life” instead of poverty.

Our Role

Amplifying Voices

• provided studio equipment and support to repurpose unused premises into studios
• facilitated a community consultation and media training workshop
• and is providing ongoing project accompaniment

... to build the station’s long term sustainability by working with staff, board and volunteers to develop their skills in local media production, ongoing community engagement, station management (building partnerships), and volunteer training.

Due to ongoing electricity shortages we are also seeking funding so Simooya Community Radio can install solar equipment to keep the station running during powercuts. The solar will also power the village borehole and the school classrooms.

Station Goals:

• Voices of Simooya (and surrounds) will be amplified.
• People will develop through ...
  • Learning new skills
  • Learning about agriculture
  • Improved productivity and livelihoods

• More specifically ...
  • Easy access to news and information (eg announcements, local news)
  • School can reach parents more easily - announcements.
  • Business will be boosted (advertisements)
  • Education for young people
  • Opportunities for young people (eg volunteering)
  • Inform authorities about disasters.
  • Support the work of local churches.
  • Entertainment
  • Improve people’s health by sharing health advice and announcements.

Key Radio Station Policies

• Information/ News values -
  • Be objective – consider all sides
  • Be neutral/ impartial – no bias to one side
  • Be accurate – verify sources
  • Promote peace – don’t stir up hate/ or violent conflict
• Politics     - Equal representation to different parties – no favouritism
• Music         – 60% local, 40% non-local, including international music
• Culture     – Promote progressive local culture -Challenge harmful cultural practice
• Language     – mainly in Tonga and some English (other Zambian languages to be included if requested by speaker or audience)
• Religion     – All local churches will be included, and will be given slots throughout the week
• Inclusion    – actively seek out and partner with minority service providers, e.g. organisations working with blind or deaf people

Recent updates from Zambia

Going on air in a drought

We are pleased to announce that Simooya Community Radio is now on air on 94.3 FM. The new ...

Transforming life in the village

"Radio will help me with my missing animals," a local headman told Johnny when he visited the village ...

A new community radio station for Southern Zambia

There are only a few areas of Southern Zambia that don't have their own radio station. Pemba district ...

The post Simooya Community Radio appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

At Amplifying Voices, we use the term "speakerbox" to talk about a digital audio player with a built in speaker, suitable for group listening for around 10 people. Speakerboxes come in various shapes and sizes and most have a variety of options for playing stored digital audio content.

Amplifying Voices partners use speakerboxes with a microSD card slot (also called TF card, flash card, or μSD), and distribute new programmes on microSD cards to listener groups. We provide two microSD cards for each speakerbox so that one card stays with the group while the other goes to the partner to get the next programme downloaded.

Several hours of digital audio content can be stored on the tiny microSD cards. Digital audio can also be stored on USB sticks, on a phone or laptop.

Most speakerboxes also have USB ports to play audio files from a USB stick and can connect to a phone, laptop or MP3 player through an "Aux" input. An Aux cable has two 3.5mm jacks, which you connect between the Aux input and the headphone socket of your other device. Some speakers have Bluetooth for playing music or content from a phone.

We now encourage partners to source speakerboxes that have an FM radio receiver built in, especially where projects have developed agreements to play programmes on local FM stations.

Why do we use Speakerboxes?

We started using speakerboxes in communities where it was not possible to set up a community radio station. However, we have since found that speakerbox projects can also offer some advantages over a radio station project.

Speakerboxes provide a very flexible way for groups of people to listen together to focussed programmes at a time of their own convenience. Groups can discuss content together, explore ideas for responding to advice or stories they've heard, and in many cases the groups also make content for future programmes.

 

Listener group gathers for a speakerbox session in Northern Uganda

Speakerbox content can be tailored to very specific audiences, and listener groups can work with producers to develop topics that are most important to the group.  It can also cover topics a radio station might not see as profitable or even too risky or taboo to handle. As the speakerbox audience is usually smaller, and often know the production team personally, there is more scope for newly trained production workers to build their skills by making speakerbox programmes until their content is good enough for broadcasting on a partner FM station.

In Pakistan and South Sudan, content which is used on speakerboxes is also broadcast on local FM stations. This allows partners to increase reach and impact without having to set up their own radio station, while still benefiting from the flexibility and focus of speakerbox listening groups.

New Dawn health worker with speakerbox for women’s listener groups.

What is Digital Audio?

For the purposes of this post, digital audio means audio content including music, and talk show recordings, that can be stored as files on a computer, phone, or memory device.  Digital audio can also be "streamed" over the internet. You might be familiar with MP3 files. MP3 is a form of digital audio.

So is a speakerbox programme rather like a podcast?

We have used the term "podcast" when talking about speakerbox programmes, because podcasts are a very close equivalent for most of our readers. However, podcasts are delivered over the internet, and speakerboxes do not have access to the internet. In the communities where we work, the term podcast is less well known, and listeners prefer to just call the programmes "radio programmes". In fact, in Northern Uganda and South Sudan, community members call speakerboxes "radios".

Is a Speakerbox basically an MP3 player?

So you remember MP3 players! They've more or less been replaced by phones now. In a sense, yes a speakerbox is a kind of MP3 player, but the term "MP3 player" usually means a small device designed for listening to with headphones. Some had small speakers on them, but they would not be suitable for group listening. MP3 players also have a lot internal storage where people could keep their music collections, and a user interface for navigating the different files. Most of the speakerboxes we use have no internal memory, no internet access, and very limited buttons for moving from file to file. This keeps the cost per speakerbox down, so more listener groups can get one. With bluetooth enabled speakerboxes, and distribution of programmes via WhatsApp (or in India, via the Adivasi Voices App), listener groups can use phones to control the speakerbox, getting the flexibility of an MP3 player and the volume and simplicity of a speakerbox.

What about power?

Solar powered radio speaker, Zambia

The early batches of speakerboxes we supplied to projects had built-in rechargeable batteries, and charged with a USB cable. However, in remote locations or refugee camps, access to power for recharging was problematic. We now work with partners to buy speakerboxes with solar panels. One partner told us they found it advisable to buy models with a removable solar panel, so that the speakerbox can be kept safely indoors while it is charging.

Read More

Find out which Amplifying Voices projects use speakerboxes

Read news updates from communities using speakerboxes

The post What is a speakerbox? appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

Anil and many other stories like his are beginning to emerge from the more than forty villages that are now participating in the Adivasi Voices Project, which is becoming an important catalyst for social change among tribal communities that have often felt marginalised and who suffer with what recent research describes as “the quadruple burden of disease.”

The key to the success of this project is that it starts with a process of listening to the stories of the community, appreciating their strengths, working with them to grow belief in their own capacity for change and to care for each other.  But now the teams feel that it’s time to go deeper.

Earlier this year I travelled with Dr Ian Campbell from Affirm Associates to work with the Adivasi Voices Project (AVP) teams to reflect on their work over the last few years and to train the team on how they can go deeper with communities using a story and “strengths-based” approach called SALT. I’ve witnessed the power of this approach first-hand, in a project Amplifying Voices was involved in, in Sierra Leone.

In India, going deeper will involve more regular and intensive visits, where AVP members will go into people’s homes to hear their personal stories, understand their concerns and build on their hopes and strengths, involving them in the creation of content that will help to transform their lives.

During our time of working together the AVP teams practiced doing “SALT conversations” with total strangers in the local town, amazed how everyone they spoke to felt valued and appreciated being heard. The team reflected on those conversations:

• We are all humans and we all have pain’
• ‘We learn through talking.’
• ‘I recognise myself – who I am and I can help people understand who they are.’
• ‘I realised I have strength in me and I can see strength in others.’
• ‘We are looking for change in ourselves and in our communities.’
• ‘When you hear people’s story, you can bring hope and learn hope.’

Since the workshop, more than 75 families have been visited which is bringing deepening connection in communities and increasing understanding of people’s concerns and hopes for their families. From these conversations, we know that there is real desire for people to live well, to earn a sustainable living for their families, and to help their children access an education. What’s more is that they are willing to work hard to achieve this. There is also a deep concern and desire to change the problems that are common among Adivasi communities. These stories will inform what people will hear on the monthly speakerbox programmes and will amplify their voices and their concerns.

*Village speakerbox programmes are produced every month with participation from local communities.  Programmes are distributed on SD cards in more than 40 villages by Adivasi Voices Project Teams. This is an initiative of  Seva Social Welfare Foundation in collaboration with Amplifying Voices.

The post Going Deeper in India appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

Opening doors in Sargodha

Transitioning from sewing classes to live radio may seem like an odd route for a project to take. ...

Amplifying with care

Through Bright Home groups, Amplifying Voices Pakistan promotes change at a pace that allows time for long-held cultural ...

From rage to peace

Taking part in a "Bright Home" group helped six sisters to overcome their rage at having “nothing to ...

See all project updates from Roshni ro Ghar

The post Bright Home – Cholistan appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

Bright Home principles developed partly in response to lessons learned a few years ago in a different project where change started to happen too quickly. At that time, we had supported a youth group to make radio programmes about local social issues and injustices. At first, we were excited to hear how young people’s confidence and hope grew. Things could – and should – be different. However, some powerful people felt threatened and pressurised the project leader to stop. The fierce backlash forced the team to bring the project to an abrupt halt. They returned the equipment to us, and we were unable to continue any further activities in that community. Marginalised voices had become too loud, too fast.

A Bright Home approach

Hazeen Latif, CEO of Amplifying Voices Pakistan, told me that Bright Home projects take a different approach. Rather than starting with a media project, local partners provide sewing classes for young women and free medical camps focussing on women and children. These address some very pressing needs in a culturally acceptable way, developing traditional skills to earn income, and bringing healthcare to women and children who are rarely able to travel to a city for advice or treatment.

However, Bright Home classes are also places of conversation. Hazeen told me how, through conversation, aspirations are emerging and possibilities for change are growing. In one Punjabi community, conversations in the sewing classes about food shortages and lack of shade in summer led to a kitchen garden initiative and a tree planting campaign.

“Like my own daughter”

Some of these activities also improved community cohesion between minority Christian groups and people from the majority religion. The Bright Home team extended health camps and healthcare home visits beyond their own Christian community to work with women and children in majority religion homes. People from the majority religion responded, with one of their leaders donating money to buy medicines for the health camps. One older woman said of the Bright Home healthworker, “she is just like my own daughter”.

Home visits -supporting families across the community

The tree planting campaign gave men opportunity to get involved. Men from both communities came together to plant trees in public spaces and in each other’s home compounds. Both religions value good stewardship of creation, and in particular, they see tree planting as a virtuous activity.

Coming together to plant trees, Punjab, 2024

“No one will harm you”

The sense of togetherness became very real after an incident in the regional city, Sargodha. Someone there had used religion as an excuse to provoke a mob attack on a Christian business. But in the village, leaders from the majority community came to the Bright Home team and said, “No one will harm you when we are sitting here”.

Instead of feeling threatened by the changes brought by Bright Home, people with power, whether through gender or through religion, have felt included and found themselves contributors to change.

“I am Light”

In KPK province, some of the young women attending a Bright Home class spoke up and said they wanted to learn to read, write and do arithmetic. In that community, many girls had not been allowed to go to school. However, the literacy and numeracy classes that are now underway are not perceived as a threat, because these skills are necessary for using sewing patterns, and for developing businesses to make money from the sewing skills. The girls called the literacy classes, “Zama Rana” (I am light).

Working with sewing patterns, Nowshera

In each of the Bright Home groups, they use speakerboxes for listening to health advice programmes made in other Amplifying Voices projects. And in each place, some of the young women would ask to learn how to make speakerbox programmes themselves – “If they can do it, we can do it” – They start by discussing topics that are raised in the class setting. The programmes are played within the class to start with, but as confidence, skills, and local acceptance of the Bright Home activities have grown, some groups are now airing their programmes on local FM stations.

Some people may still oppose changes, especially those that offer opportunity and influence to young women in very conservative communities. However, there are now more who support the changes, who even help to make change happen. Bright Home communities are able to amplify local voices, because they do so with care.

The post Amplifying with care appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

The new radio station in Pemba district of Southern Province, Zambia, started airing test broadcasts on Monday 8^th April. Johnny was happy to be present at the switch-on, along with Milden Choongo from our partner organisation, Chibozu Community Trust. In the week leading up to the switch-on, an enthusiastic team of volunteers took part in a media training workshop. They used community mapping exercises to build a picture of their communities’ various resources and challenges, and to develop ideas for how media could bring out their local strengths to tackle the challenges. New media skills included reading the news, making short educational announcements (CSAs), and preparing for interviews with local dignitaries.

Volunteers give feedback on their community mapping exercise. Simooya, 2024

There was a powercut when we went to practice working with the new radio studio. But this didn’t deter the team. One person took the role of presenter, another sat at the guest microphone.

Learning to use a studio during a powercut, Simooya, 2024

As the presenter moved the faders on the mixing console and interviewed the “guest”, a third person sang along to provide music for fading in and out between the speech segments.

It was a lot of fun, and when the power came back on, the lesson progressed quickly under the tutelage of Kelvin Muzelenga, the new station manager.

However, all this happened in the context of the worst drought Zambia has experienced in many years. The Zambian government has introduced scheduled power outages (loadshedding) to cope with a reduced electricity supply capability. The country is reliant on hydro-electric power, but the rains failed between November and March, leaving rivers and dams at very low levels. This means that government needs to ration electricity supplies until the rivers have been replenished by the next rainy season.

Underground water supplies have not yet run out, so there is still water for irrigation on large farms, and for communal water tanks supplying drinking water in villages like Simooya. However, the drought has ruined maize crops in rural communities where small-scale farmers don’t have irrigation equipment. Small scale farmers grow crops for their own food supply, so lots of households face a year of hunger if they can’t find money buy food instead.

One commercial farmer I visited, on learning that I had come to help get the radio station on air, said my time would be better spent digging boreholes to provide water as that is the real need. As you read this post, you may well feel the same way. It’s the sort of dilemma we are often confronted with.

Maize crops in Simooya, destroyed by the drought conditions. April 2024

The farmer went on to say how sad it is that so many farmers are selling their cattle and goats because there is a lack of good pastureland, and farmers need to sell to get money to buy maize for their families. The flood of livestock on the market has depressed prices, making this an inefficient way to raise money. The farmer also told me that the Tonga cattle, a breed native to this area, are very hardy, adapted to the harsh climate and resistant to local pests. When the drought is over, farmers will want to replenish their stock, but will have to buy in from other regions and the new herds will not be so resistant to local livestock challenges, causing further losses. She thought it would be good if local farmers could work cooperatively to protect their breeding stock.

I realised we were having exactly the kind of conversation that works so well on community-centred radio. An idea is born, and community members talk it over on the radio and in their homes. People are drawn together to work out the details or to adapt the idea and develop a workable solution which is also shared over the radio.

This also goes for conversations about boreholes, raising awareness that boreholes don’t have an infinite supply and could dry up during drought. Water should not be wasted, so radio can help build community consensus around prioritising water use.

We don’t yet know how the people of Simooya will respond to these challenges, but we have seen how innovative the volunteers are in their first attempts at creating content, and how much they want to see their communities flourish. Another commercial farmer from the district has already provided the station manager with sample radio programmes he is making with small scale farmers in the region, discussing ways to maximise productivity despite the drought. We are confident that Simooya and the surrounding village will use the new radio station as one of their primary tools to respond to the drought together, and to ensure as many people as possible can benefit from solutions they develop.

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We were in Morobo in South Sudan, visiting the Hope Village project and providing a media training workshop for people in local villages, many of whom had recently returned from refugee camps in Uganda or Congo. Since arriving we had felt constantly confronted by the scale of challenge faced by the returnees, the oppressive background of political instability, and the smallness of the part we could play.

Yet, as we spent time with community members, we saw and heard stories in Morobo that shifted our perception from futility to sharing in the hope felt by these people, who are willing to risk so much to return and to see potential in such a fragile place.

We had arrived in Morobo following the same route as many returnees, by road via the Kaya border crossing point. The distance from Kaya to Morobo is relatively short, only 16 miles by road, but until very recently that short distance would have seemed very long to travellers because of the risk of violent robbery, or sexual assault.

Rows of buildings that were once shops are now shells. People find new places to trade from. Morobo County, South Sudan

As our vehicle made its way along the rutted and eroded road, our companions pointed out the burnt-out car of a bishop who was robbed last summer, and then to a place where they themselves had been robbed and narrowly escaped a worse fate. Many of the brick buildings lining the roads had been abandoned during South Sudan’s conflict in 2016. The valuable roofing sheets had long since been removed.

Returnees were building homes, but using traditional methods with grass roofs instead of steel sheeting. These newly built houses were harder to see, many of them further back from the roads, reflecting a preference for finding concealment in the bush.

Hope Village started about a year ago. Our partners, Community Development Centre in South Sudan (CDC), provided speakerboxes to listener groups in several villages between Morobo and the Ugandan border at Kaya. Each group consists of around 10 families. The CDC team in Yei, supported by volunteers in Morobo, have been creating and distributing monthly podcasts which the listener groups play on the speakerboxes. The podcasts include interviews, stories, and songs from community members. Our workshop was aimed at helping community members discover more ways they could use media to mobilise their communities and build for peace.

During and following the conflict, soldiers in this area have usually been posted from another part of South Sudan and belong to other tribes. This has often led to soldiers abusing or oppressing local villagers, especially on the roads, or by plundering crops at harvest time. Bravely, the Hope Village team had decided to give a speakerbox to the local army barracks and include them in the community conversations.

During our visit we attended a community meeting and heard that this has been a good decision. One person from Kimba community told us –

“The community is living together well. It [the podcast] has encouraged people to cultivate [because crops won’t be plundered]. Before the [podcasts], we couldn’t travel far. But now there is less fear of soldiers – more peace – we are even able to greet soldiers in passing on the road.”

A woman then stood up and gave her perspective –

“Before the [podcasts] there was no unity or love. Now when we meet someone on the road (even men) we greet in peace. Because men … have realised that GBV (gender-based-violence) is wrong.”

Not every story was so positive. One man told us about his village, close to a camp of opposition forces. It is currently too dangerous to give a speakerbox to soldiers in the opposition forces camp and this village continues to face robbery and plundering. But his story led to a conversation among the leaders. Something must be done. This story must be heard too.

Some young people were passing the meeting and stopped to listen. One of them, a youth leader, spoke up, saying that he likes the entertainment –

“The songs have good meaning. War has led to rape, turned people poor, but songs give hope.”

Losing the culture of greeting one another in the road may not seem like the worst effect of war, but the stories of people finding it safer to greet again symbolise the hope of people on the road to peace.

You can listen below to the Hope Village theme song (written and performed by Barnabas Samuel) …

The post Safer to greet appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

Hope Village, Morobo

Communities in South Sudan-Uganda border regions (Yei, Morobo, Lainya) are affected by refugees returning to South Sudan, and through internal migration of cattle herders after several years of flooding making traditional grazing grounds in other states unusable. The internal
migration has led to inter-communal violence and loss of crops.

Amplifying Voices has been invited by South Sudanese partner Community Development Centre (CDC) to support this project with training and equipment.

Objectives:

Support community efforts to improve long-term community stability through peacebuilding and natural resource management.

Our Role

Amplifying Voices

• provided basic studio equipment
• facilitated a community consultation and media training workshop
• and is providing ongoing project accompaniment

So that the Hope Village team can increase impact and engagement through

• MP3 "Speakerboxes" and weekly SD card distribution equip additional listener groups in remote locations most at risk from lack of information, misinformation, or social exclusion.
• partnership with Iyete FM, a community radio station.
• Regular audio programmes designed and produced in Morobo
• Informal content distribution via bluetooth and mobile to mobile transfer.
• Promotes and enables dialogue between settled community groups, returnees and locally-stationed armed forces.
• Also provides possibilities for accessing radio content produced for refugees by other local partners.

Expected Outcomes:

• Prevention of conflict flare-ups due to open and informed discussion of rumours, and due to greater trust and understanding between communities, returnees and armed actors.
• Newly returned refugees are able to access services faster and to feel more at peace in their new surroundings.
• Vulnerable groups within communities build confidence through accessing relevant information in response to voicing concerns
• Health workers and other development experts are more effective because they are welcomed as guests of community rather than seen as imposed opinions.

Recent updates from CDC projects in South Sudan and Uganda

Tana River – a new narrative

"I'm tired of the negative narrative around here, where locals believe they are not good enough," said Nyambura ...

Opening doors in Sargodha

Transitioning from sewing classes to live radio may seem like an odd route for a project to take. ...

Simooya Community Radio

Simooya Community Radio, Pemba District Amplifying Voices partnered with the Chibozu Community Trust, an NGO registered in Zambia ...

See more Soot Semee stories ...

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