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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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.

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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In a remote tribal village in Maharashtra a remarkable story is unfolding. It started with one village.  After a year, another one joined in.  Before too long there were thirty others, with new ones asking to join. None of the communities in these villages had ever met, but somehow they knew each other well, for they shared a common story – of challenge and adversity. But they were also connected through the Adivasi Voices Project, a  joint venture between local NGO, Seva and Amplifying Voices.

Sharing stories, coming together

For over a year these village communities have been listening to each other’s stories on speakerboxes, learning from each other and from experts too.  With support from the Seva team, people shared their stories, about overcoming addiction, escaping the trap of bonded labour, or how to start a kitchen garden. The communities not only inspired each other that change is possible, they also shared how.

Since before the pandemic many people from these communities had been asking Seva to set up a face-to-face meeting with other villages in the district, and so for the first time, last week, five communities came together, hosted by the village of Umburne.

“It was like meeting long-lost friends ,” said Ram, “we had so much to talk about, but most importantly we talked about the programmes we loved the most and the changes that have happened in our villages since we had the speakerboxes.”

Village-to-village transfer

Seva team leader, Shilpa described the gathering as being like a celebration of learning. As story after story was shared, Shilpa said she was so surprised to see how much faster change had come to the villages which had most recently received the speakerboxes, compared to those who had them at the beginning.  “They have adopted new ideas, attitudes and practices much more quickly than the first villages we started working in,” she said.  “Of course the communities have learned from the interviews with experts, but what has been most powerful is that the communities have been learning from each other,” she added, describing it as a “village-to-village transfer.”

Community members from five adivasi villages in Maharashtra share how stories and content on the speakerboxes have impacted their lives

The content on the speakerboxes is coordinated by the Seva team, however each programme is rooted in the heart of the village and the communities are involved in their design and creation.  Experts too are involved when important learning or information needs to be shared. The most popular programmes in all the villages, however were the dramas, which reflect village life and issues they all face. One lady, Trimbak, chuckled as she recounted how the family arguments she heard in the dramas were just like the arguments in her family.” Dattu, who was able to recite the dialogues in the dramas, said the programmes were in their language and exactly depicted their lives and situations.  Tulshi shared how the programme on early marriages had sparked a big conversation in his village, because they hadn’t allow girls to get an education above 4th standard. “But all that has changed,” he said, “Our entire village have decided that all our children should have an opportunity to have secondary education as well.”

After food and dancing the villagers said their farewells, agreeing that this should become a regular event and that more villages should be included in future.

For us, we have been reminded that lasting, sustainable change happens at the grassroots level. And that when change, no matter how small comes to one community, it can cause ripples of change in other communities.  Some of these ripples will intersect with other ripples to create waves which result in momentum and lasting impact.

The post Connecting Communities appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

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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There’s Bakar, the opinionated local carpenter and talented musician, who often feels free to dispense good advice, especially during the Covid pandemic. Orfoe is Saltville’s self-important chairman of the community bike riders who is always up for an argument; and then there’s Gibo, a young-man who’s had many so many setbacks in life he navigates his way on the street by getting hold of drugs from any place he can.

Bakar, Orfoe and Gibo are just some of the many characters in Freetown’s popular radio drama, which explores what happens when people make good (and bad) decisions about health and life issues.  Although Saltville only exists on the airwaves of our radio partner BBN, the plots for the drama come directly out of a community listening process in Freetown, known as ‘SALT’.

The 15 episode radio drama was designed not only to reflect the real challenges that people have been facing during the pandemic, but to stimulate further community conversations.

Street scene in Freetown, 2019

One enlightening feature of SALT community listening, is that a single seed question can lead to multiple different stories and topics that community members or households want to discuss. The SALT volunteers asked people they visited about learning to live with Covid and heard stories that wove this theme into different scenarios of real life in Freetown. When it came to plotting the radio drama, anonymised stories collected from these SALT visits were given to the producers. The producers then used the information to develop a plot that depicts specific interest groups or individuals relevant to the community.  Radio drama listeners have been shown to be more likely to consider new behaviours or attitudes if they identify strongly with the characters (Read this paper for a detailed study). So while the characters are fictional, their stories reflect stories of real community members.

Click play on the Audio Player below to hear a brief clip from Episode 1 of the radio drama which is in Sierra Leonean Krio.  This scene introduces the theme of Covid denial, interwoven with different views about self-employment.

If you don’t speak Krio, (or don’t have time to listen now), here is a synopsis of the scene,

Bakar is working on refurbishing a set of chairs and singing a nice song. A Councilor who is on his way to council comments on how good Bakar is at carpentry and singing. He jokingly tells Bakar that he should give up carpentry and become an artist so that he will become famous. Bakar tells him that he prefers to do his carpentry and if there is any luck for him, he will record some songs to see how people will receive them but he will not put carpentry aside. Councilor laughs and says Bakar is very smart and leaves. As he leaves, Gibo arrives looking and sounding as if he is high on drugs. Bakar stops working and ask him why after all the advice he has been giving him, he is still on drugs. Gibo denies and says that it is the system that is frustrating him as if those in authority do not care about the common man. Bakar tells him that he is always blaming others but yet still he does not make any effort to find some work to do. Gibo gives his opinion that there are no jobs for the youth to which Bakar responds by saying Gibo can learn a trade just like himself. He adds that he is always advising him to take good care of himself but even with Covid around, he does not take any precautions. An argument breaks out with Gibo saying that Covid does not exist. Orfoe comes along and meets them arguing. he immediately sides with Gibo saying that Covid does not exist and that Bakar always acts as if he knows everything when he does not know anything else but carpentry. Bakar retorts by asking Orfoe to tell him what he knows and Orfoe replies that he is the chairman of the bike riders in the community and therefore, Bakar should talk to him with respect. Gibo ends the scene by telling them to forget about the argument, after all he is the one who has the argument with Bakar and not Orfoe.

Later in this same episode, the writers also introduce several other characters in a series of scenes about street hygiene, the use of the health clinic, malaria prevention, and cooperation among religious leaders to fight against covid-19. Each scene addresses the life situation, while also introducing questions about Covid into the mix.

In this series there is an honesty about the dilemmas people face when confronted with controversies about Covid vaccines which was a major problem in Sierra Leone during the height of the pandemic (e.g. see this IGR Sierra Leone report on vaccine uptake and hesitancy). The radio dramas don’t provide neatly packaged solutions but provide information from respected sources woven into examples of difficult discussions that allow community members to make their own informed choices. Radio drama creates space to explore – and an appetite to do so.

SALT is a form of Ting listening in which teams of community volunteers visit households and neighbourhood meetings to learn from community stories and affirm local strengths. The letters S, A, L, T are used during team training workshops to stimulate conversation around words that illustrate SALT-y ways thinking and working … e.g. strength, story, support, affirm, attitude, appreciate, learn, listen, team, transfer. Visit Affirm Facilitators to learn about other communities using SALT approaches.

The post Radio drama in Sierra Leone appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

Sharing our  learning

Our article in Footsteps explores two of the less obvious advantages of community-centred media – advocacy (amplifying the voices of those who have been disadvantaged) – and encouraging better understanding of others by promoting community conversations. We also highlighted the relative simplicity of audio as a medium, allowing people with a variety of abilities to participate in creating content.

Advocacy is highlighted in the article by Hazeen’s story about people, who were tricked by thieves into paying for a free government service, having their money restored after the thieves heard their stories on the radio and realised they had been discovered.

Amani FM is rooted in community conversations. At its outset, the radio programmes shared personal stories from people who were in conflict with each other allowing the listeners to “walk a mile in their neighbours shoes”. This promoted dialogue and understanding – foundations for peace.

Each Footsteps issue includes a Resources article designed to inspire communities to try some ideas out for themselves. This month “How to make a community podcast” is based on our partners’ experiences in Uganda and India, using speakerboxes in areas where radio is not possible or appropriate.

Learning from others

It is really encouraging to be asked to share our own learning. It is also encouraging to see the  innovation of other organisations using various participatory approaches for effective communication. In this issue, my good friend Bobby Zachariah helps corporations become more effective in their social responsibility activities by getting better at listening, using an approach called SALT. You may have heard us talk about the SALT approach when we talk about the Amplify project in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

SALT volunteers listening to community stories. Freetown. BBN, 2019

In the spirit of listening well, Roland Lubett talks about the importance of understanding non-verbal communication – and we learn that non-verbal communication isn’t limited to body language.

The World Association of Christian Communication (WACC) talks about supporting women in Delhi to build skills in using mobile phones and other modern communication methods so that their voices are included in the decisions that affect them. From WACC we learn about taking a rights-based approach to communication.

Five Talents tell Ana’s story. Ana felt she didn’t have the right skills, but her personal qualities drew many unheard people into community conversations – and encouraged her own daughter to become a facilitator and communicator.

From Tearfund we learn about Community Theatre – reflecting the power of being immersed in a story. This article resonates with us because radio drama is a popular and effective tool in the places where we work. Our partners, BBN in Freetown, are currently using a radio drama series to address fears about getting the Covid vaccination.

Insightshare uses a similar approach to Amplifying Voices, but with video. Their article shares how participatory video enabled widows in communities in Ghana to move from whispering their issues among themselves to having the attention of chiefs and politicians.

An interview with a facilitator, who has learned sign language to be able to include deaf people in her workshops, reminds us to address hidden barriers to full participation in communication. As does a final article about the risks of the “smarts” behind social media which deliver a limited and tailored view of the world to our smartphones.

Such a breadth of participatory communication activities emphasises the value of collaboration – and helps us to avoid the pitfall of thinking our way is the only best way. But we are also very encouraged to be reminded that community-centred radio (and podcasts) play such an important role in completing this tapestry of participatory communication.

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Community mapping

Planning media content

Planning media content

Workshop exercises

CDC plans to integrate community-centred media as part of a larger project to promote peacebuilding and good natural resource management in Central Equatoria state. As the week progressed, it became more and more evident how great a need there is for this project.

With the backdrop of a stalling peace process in South Sudan and the war in Ukraine filling my newsfeeds, and my own feelings of helpless anger at the tragic situation, I also heard several local stories of conflict between cattle herders and farmers, of roadside robberies and of murders committed during the time I was in Yei, just a few kilometres from where I was staying.

Yei River county is rich in natural resources.

CDC in both Uganda and South Sudan hear these tragic stories daily as implementing partners for the Hagiga Wahid misinformation management tool. When someone reports a story or rumour to Hagiga Wahid, CDC passes it through a network of trusted sources in the places where the events are said to have happened to verify whether the stories are rumours or truth. Hagiga Wahid have been so successful at verifying stories in South Sudan, that one armed group accused CDC of using satellite spy technology. Getting the truth behind distressing stories through crowdsourcing information is one step towards preventing escalation of violence.

Because violent conflict is so prevalent to everyday life, Anthony and I found ourselves giving much more time in this workshop to the sessions on conflict sensitive content. I found myself learning a lot from doing these sessions this time round. Together we learned the importance of citizen journalists mapping out who the different actors are in a conflict. Then instead of reporting on the stated positions of each party which pit them against each other as combatants, local journalists should explore the stories behind each party’s needs that have driven them to take the positions they have, Conflict sensitive reporting would highlight the areas where differing needs reflect common ground or common humanity, giving participants reasons for dialogue.

Each day I would hear reporting styles on the Ukraine war that were the opposite of this, with journalists promoting the positions of the combatants and presenting stories in a way that encouraged polarisation and escalated anger. It helped me to see how difficult it might be to take the objective road of discovering truth and listening to all parties in the conflict, especially where a powerful party might be brutally oppressing others.

I wondered if the tools were over idealistic, especially for workshop participants who are not external observers to the conflict but who have to live with violent events affecting their daily lives. So I was very encouraged when the CDC team also shared some conflict mapping work they had been doing for the wider project using very similar tools. The workshop allowed us to bring together their tools for conflict mapping with media tools for creating conflict sensitive content.

Going forward CDC are identifying listener groups in areas around Yei most affected by conflict and pressure on natural resources. A community-centred media project in those communities would follow a podcast and speakerbox model, similar to Soot Semee, as the communities are beyond the range of the Yei FM stations. However, content could also benefit people closer to Yei and we are hopeful that the participants from the radio stations in Yei will persuade their organisations to carry community-centred content for much reduced rates, recognising that the media is sourced in the community rather than being top-down messaging from relatively well-off international NGOs.

Stop Press: The project team and a few other community members have proposed the name "Studio Salam" meaning the Studio of Peace, for the community-centred media serving Yei and the surrounding area.

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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 …

The post Soot Semee – Two years of building peace appeared first on Amplifying Voices.