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.”

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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.

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The sisters live in remote village in Punjab, Pakistan, where Amplifying Voices Pakistan recently started the “Roshan Ghar” (Bright Home) sewing centre, at which women can develop new skills and exercise their voice in addressing community matters.

After the first batch of participants enrolled in the Roshan Ghar training, the class teacher gave an update to Hazeen Latif, CEO of Amplifying Voices Pakistan. She told him one of the participating families is very poor and have neither enough to eat each day nor a bread winner in their family. The girls are known locally as “Six-Sister”. Two of them met the criteria to attend the sewing centre. The others wanted to enroll too but they were too young.

A few years previously when their father had died, poverty pushed their mother into leaving them behind to go and re-marry. The youngest of the six was only 3 years old at the time. Their mother lives a few km away from their village with her new husband who already has several children. The girls used to say that they hated her. Two of the girls come to the sewing centre regularly for lessons. The younger ones also come along with them as there is no one at home. They leave their home door open as it is broken. They don’t have any worries about not locking their home as they say “we have nothing to lose”. There is nothing in it that anyone would want to steal.

When they started coming to class, the middle girl asked the teacher, “Where is God for us? We live in one room which leaks when it rains. The rainwater not only comes from the roof but also through the walls. Even our floor level has sunk down. We have only one bed made locally from grass rope and a another smaller bed which is broken, where my elder sister sleeps. We often go to bed hungry, and we all sleep on one bed squeezed, unable to turn right or left. There is no extra thing to sit on or just for hanging out. Winter and summer are both a challenge for us. Where is God’s love for us? Many men young and older come into the house saying they want to look out for us, but we can tell in their eyes, their intentions are bad. We have an uncle, but he is also poor. Still, he feeds us and supports us from time to time.

However, more recently they say that they thank God for Roshan Ghar as they found respect and something to learn. “People gave us their used clothes but now, after Roshan Ghar sewing centre, one day we will wear new clothes.”

The Bright Home sewing class, Punjab (Amplifying Voices Pakistan 2023)

During the Roshan Ghar sewing classes, participants also listen to programmes on speakerboxes. The programmes are produced by members of their community with support from Amplifying Voices Pakistan. In addition to topics that directly support the vocational training, speakerbox programmes also include health advice and material for spiritual encouragement. The village has a mainly Christian population so the programmes start with a Christian devotional and later a short message. The six-sisters said Roshan Ghar changed their lives and thinking about God and love. They found peace in their hearts where they had been filled with rage and thoughts of revenge for what life has done to them. One of the girls is studying in a nearby school. She decided to start memorising the Gospel of Matthew.

Health worker interviews a community member during a health seminar, Punjab (Amplifying Voices Pakistan, 2023)

When Hazeen asked recently how the sisters were doing, the sewing centre teacher said, “When they started coming to sewing centre, they were shy and would stay quiet but now they talk and talk, enjoy what they do, and they’ve also made some good friends.

Amplifying Voices Pakistan offered to support the girls with new locally made beds and a pedestal fan. They also committed to help with fees for the sister who wanted to stay in school. Seeing that some small steps could be a big help, the community also felt inspired to help. The neighbours next door shared their electricity supply as the girls’ own supply had been cut due to non-payment. The elder sister also felt motivated and found a job selling SIM cards for a mobile company. It’s a tough job as she only earns on commission if she makes sales and some days she can come home having sold no cards. But she perseveres.

When Hazeen met them he asked, “what is your dream?”, they all looked at each other and quietly spoke; “we want to live a peaceful life and have our home fixed, nothing more.” The second oldest said “I want to study and study and study this is my dream.”

The little one, the youngest, said nothing but kept smiling.

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Rokhan-e-Kore class, KPK, 2023

Sewing classes have been running now for several weeks and young girls who attend have told us that they have learned a lot. They can see how they will use these skills to earn money from their families. Some of the participants said they would be interested in learning computer and media skills. But there are challenges.

It started with a challenge to one of our own norms! We have a training mantra which you may have heard us say before: “Get your shoes dirty”. It’s a shorthand way of saying people should build trust and be relevant by getting out of their office or studio into the community to engage with people on the streets and in the markets. The women attending the sewing classes had picked up on this aspect of community-centred media, perhaps during discussion about community-centred media in the broader community during the AViD response to the floods last summer. When discussing the possibility of including media training in Rokhan-e-Kore, the participants said they couldn’t be involved if it meant going out to record interviews etc in the streets and markets of their own village and neighbouring places.  They said it has been a big thing for many of these women and girls to get permission from their families to attend Rokhan-e-Kore in a classroom outside their homes. They don’t want to jeopardise that.

Hazeen explained that they would be able to do all media learning, recording and other production within the classroom. The class teacher is very willing to learn how to teach the media skills, so eventually Hazeen would not need to be the one teaching. He also explained that the purpose of the “get your shoes dirty” principle is to persuade media people and service providers (eg clinics, religious groups) to leave their comfort zones to come and listen to people in community locations, like the women in the sewing class. The voices of local women making and taking new opportunities are the voices that media should amplify.

Hazeen also recognised that it could be a bit scary to talk on a radio programme, which could go out via a local FM station, about these new opportunities and the participants’ roles in creating them. It’s scary because it the people who traditionally make decisions and create income might feel threatened by the programme content. He encouraged the women that they could use pseudonyms whenever they create content, and that the name of their village needn’t be mentioned. This does create a challenge for one of our other norms – that of building trust and rapport with community members through familiar voices. However, listeners don’t need to identify the women speaking to be able to identify with them. The women have familiar accents and their stories or challenges are similar to what the listeners’ face.

Within minutes of Hazeen providing these reassurances, the participants asked him,

“will we able to talk about the womens’ issues that no-one ever talks about?”.

With an emphatic yes, Hazeen was delighted to say that this is one of the main reasons why we offer media training and ongoing support to create programmes. It’s what community-centred media should be all about.

Paraphrasing something I heard from Fred Bahnson, the frontlines of change are best led by those most disadvantaged by the status quo. In Rokhan-e-Kore contexts, we are equipping those disadvantaged by the status quo to take their first steps as agents of change by helping them to feel sufficiently safe to do so.

The arrival of some solar panels gave another indication that these culturally sensitive steps are bearing fruit. Hazeen and his local partner leave most of the engagement with class participants to a local woman so that there are only few occasions when a man is present and so the women can continue to observe “purdah” (or seclusion from men). Because the classes are in a public place outside their homes, and because a man may occasionally be present, the women do wear veils in the classroom. At this time of year, it gets very hot, and wearing a veil makes the heat even harder to bear. However, a local man has agreed to donate solar panels if Hazeen can provide pedestal fans. This reflects that some local men value the Bright Home activities and want to do something to support.

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This week, women from a minority community in Punjab started a series of workshops teaching sewing skills to other women and girls. At the end of the first day, participants and their relatives told the coordinator that they see this workshop as a launch pad to greater things.

Selfie-time at the first sewing class, Sargodha.

Setting up the Roshan Ghar workshop in Sargodha came out of listening to community members, hearing local concerns, and helping to identify the skills and resources that already exist in the community. Three women with skills and motivation offered to provide training to other women and young girls. The local partner found a suitable training room and a gift from an Australian media organisation, FEBC Australia, helped to buy sewing machines for the class.

Amplifying Voices encourage our partners to have these “strengths-based” conversations in any community they work with when starting a community-centred media project. This process of listening to what’s strong in a community can lead to inspiring on-air discussions about community members responding to challenges, and can encourage community members to put their skills to use in new off-air activities. With Roshan Ghar, it is the off-air activities, i.e. the vocational skills classes, that are paving the way for media conversations and inspiring people to reach for their dreams.

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Hazeen from Amplifying Voices Pakistan visited some villages near Nowshera with local contact, Zafar, who is leading the Community Media Power project. Following early community consultations, they heard that access to clean water is a priority for several of these villages. The male participants initially said that for change to come, there needed to be change at the top political levels, in particular the removal of corruption. After Hazeen encouraged the men to think more about issues that were closer to their circles of influence, they talked about the need for better hygiene and health, for water and electricity, about poverty. They said that access to clean water is a key issue that could greatly improve local health, especially among women and children.

At that time, Hazeen and Zafar had asked to hear from women in the community, but cultural norms meant that the women did not want to speak to unknown men publicly. More recently, a community leader who is very supportive of the project, introduced Hazeen and Zafar to a female social worker from the area. Before the media project came along, Gul had been going door to door, mobilising people to get vaccinated for polio. She also started a small project working with women to give vocational training. However, the project stopped when the roof fell in on the training room after heavy rains. The community knows her and trusts her, and she still wanted to work with these villages. So, she agreed to go with Zafar to the villages and do some interviews.

When Zafar first took Gul to help with interviews, they had prepared interviews about clean water and hygiene. And this is an issue that matters to women too, so they had plenty to say. Gul was a natural at interviewing so Hazeen encouraged Zafar to ask her to become more involved in developing the community-centred media project. She agreed and is really keen to help marginalised people by using radio. She also has the support of her family which is so important in this cultural context.

Gul joined Hazeen and Zafar for a training day with only women from the community, and they did another community mapping exercise. The outcome revealed the importance of listening to both groups directly, even though the men were trying to speak with the interests of women in mind. The number one issue that the women highlighted was education for women and girls, and related to this, when parents are arranging marriages, girls said they wanted their parents also to consider whether husband is educated.

Listening to different perspectives, nr Nowshera, 2022

The topic of women’s education did come up in the original consultation which only men had attended, but it was lower priority. One of the elders said “Pathan men are like men everywhere. They love their daughters very much and want the best for them – would do anything for them”. He went on to say that they also find it hard to give them access to education because schools or colleges are far away from the home, and they feel it is too risky to allow their daughters to travel across town to get there. There was a sense that those risks put this topic outside their perceived field of influence.

However, it was clearly a top priority for the women who met with Gul, and they decided this would be the topic for a pilot for series of women’s radio programmes. Zafar taught Gul to use the Zoom voice recorder so she could collect content without him being present and Hazeen taught her to write a script for a programme and prepare for interviews.

The pilot programme, called Bright Home, has interviews with community members (girls and parents of girls). It will also have an interview with a school principal about education for girls. The interviews cover issues such as access to schools as well as exploring the issue of transport and distance from the girls’ homes to the nearest schools. Gul will also be supported to develop her vocational skills programme in partnership with community members. The vocational programme will be called SHE (Skills, Health, Education).

A 2015 study among men in north-western Pakistan, found that the men’s attitudes to women’s participation in community and education are at times contradictory, but heavily influenced by the cutural norms of the Pakhtunwali tribal code.  The author recommends that “Understanding men’s views is a starting point. The next step is to engage men in the collective struggle for gender justice.” Community-centred media creates opportunities for men to engage by listening directly to the voices of women. Iterative listening can be a far-reaching process.

For more about Amplifying Voices’ listening approach to community engagement see Its a Ting thing

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