It’s not every day you get to hang out with local heroes, but that was the joy my colleague Kevin from FEBC Australia and I had recently when we visited the Vox Radio team in eastern Kenya’s Tana Delta. After the end of one of the most peaceful elections ever in Kenya, Vox Radio was awarded a certificate of recognition as “heroes” for the amazing role they played in spreading peace in Tana River County. And their recognition is well-deserved, as since 2017, this young team has been working tirelessly to engage with every community in the region, promoting dialogue, listening to fears, challenging hate speech and misinformation. Everywhere we went, from government offices to small villages, we were told that Vox Radio had played a significant role, not just in bringing harmony between rival groups, but in promoting health and development and championing those whose voices were rarely heard.

“Vox Radio has been instrumental in bringing peace to Tana Delta.”

Hon Ali Wario, MP tells Jon about the value of Vox Radio

Even the local MP for the region is impressed.  In a meeting at his parliamentary office in Nairobi, Honourable Ali Wario, told me that Vox Radio had been instrumental in bringing peace to the region.  Recalling the massacre in Tana River ten years ago, Hon Wario said the county was in such a different place now, and that Vox Radio had played a big part in changing the atmosphere by promoting understanding between the different communities.  He added that the station had also been a big help during the pandemic with its educational and health programmes.

During our visit we met different communities who told us how Vox Radio spoke with their voice.  We also heard however, how difficult life had become. Drought has ravaged livestock, crops and livelihoods. With dramatic increases in costs due to the war in Ukraine, many said they didn’t know how they would manage going forward. In one village a school had sent all their children home saying they could not attend as they weren’t able to pay school fees, which was devastating news to the families, adding to Tana River’s education crisis.  The county already lags far behind the rest of Kenya, having among the lowest transition rates between primary and secondary schools and the lowest literacy level nationally.

This was brought home to us during our visit to a school in Tana Delta, where 13 teachers are responsible for the education of 900 students. The head teacher Mole Hashako Yako, listed a range of challenges from providing enough food and water each day for children, to education resources and classroom furniture.  And yet she believes that access to quality education is one of the most effective ways to enable communities to break the cycle of under-development and dependency.

To that end, it was a delight for us to finalise an agreement with the Amani Centre (community-based organisation) to establish a new information communication technology (ICT) hub in the rapidly expanding town of Minjilla on the LAPSSET corridor.  At the centre of this community-led initiative will be Vox Radio, which will move to Minjilla in January 2023.  Mrs Hashako Yako believes this ICT hub, integrated with the work of Vox Radio could revolutionise the learning for resource-deprived schools like hers.  During the Covid-19 pandemic, Vox Radio proved the value of radio in education through their ‘school of the air‘. With partners such as Elimu and their innovative digital learning resources, we believe this centre will revolutionise education, health and development in Tana River County for years to come.

John Green (Amani Centre Chair) with Jon and Kevin Keegan (CEO of FEBC Australia) and the signed agreement to establish the new ICT Hub

Featured photo: Fatma Mzee receives the “Heroes Award” on behalf of Vox Radio
(Picture courtesy of Vox Radio)

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In partnership with the Amani Centre and FEBC Australia, a major opportunity has arisen to establish an “ICT” hub that we believe will bring dramatic changes for the region’s population, which has often felt disadvantaged and neglected. ICT stands for information communication technology, and initiatives like the one we are planning, have been widely documented as being crucial to reducing poverty, improving access to health and education services and creating new sources of income and employment.

Chairman of the Amani Centre, John Otunga, believes this community-led initiative will be a game changer for Tana River’s communities: “The ICT hub is so significant at this time as it will bridge the digital divide that has for years left the marginalised communities in Tana River and especially women and girls excluded from present-day opportunities.”

Central to the ICT hub will be Vox Radio (formerly Amani FM) which Amplifying Voices helped set up in 2017 and which has become a trusted friend to the communities that it it serves*.  It will continue to reach these communities and many more, however it will relocate 6km away to the town of Minjilla, a town that is fast becoming a nerve centre in East Africa’s largest infrastructure project, the LAPSSET trade corridor between Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan.

John says that most young people in Tana River are either unemployed or underemployed despite the government’s best efforts to create online jobs, but he believes this ICT hub, the first and only centre in Tana River,  will empower young people with employable skills in the digital space.  “It will build the capacity of the young minds to become creative, and access digital learning and digital jobs to empower them economically and have sustainable skills. The centre will offer mentorship while employing a collaborative learning approach that will spur development and inspire innovation that will hatch local solutions to local problems,” he says.

Working with other like-minded groups, we believe this ICT hub will greatly expand the transformative work of the local radio team, combining the power of the FM station with resources such as a digital learning centre, vocational training and a community library – alongside the vital misinformation warning project, Una Hakika.

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