In recent weeks in Europe, we’ve seen how natural resources, that should provide sustainable livelihoods for local people, are being repurposed to placate aggressors. In Morobo county, years after villagers lost swathes of their valuable teak and fruit trees to conflict, trees are now changing role again – from placating aggressors to building sustainable peace.

In the Southern border regions of South Sudan, armed groups, either from the South Sudanese armed forces or from opposition groups, were often posted from the North and left for months without any wages, or senior leadership. To provide for themselves, some of these groups would confiscate harvests from locals. In the process they also destroyed lots of the mango and jackfruit orchards. Some went beyond simply seeking sustenance and plundered the valuable teak plantations, leading to widespread deforestation.

Over the last year, the Hope Village community-centred media project produced several speakerbox and radio programmes on natural resource management, exploring the causes and the far-reaching effects of deforestation. Listeners groups contributed their own thoughts to programmes and got a wider conversation going. Listeners heard how deforestation is linked to changes to local climate, such as reduced rains, and increased dust and heat. They also acknowledged that the reduction in local resources had led to new conflicts between neighbours or neighbouring communities. Lack of food or income sources for families led to girls being married off early and increased the number of school dropouts.

The Konakimungu listening group took on the challenge. They agreed together to start up a campaign on the plantation of teak trees, mangoes and jackfruits to replace destroyed trees around their home stead.

With support from our partner Community Development Centre (South Sudan), the Hope Village radio programmes also provide advice and support for how communities can go about a campaign like this. This includes conversations about gender equality so that men and women, boys and girls, would work together to plant new trees and so that all would benefit from the tree planting activities. They want to improve the lives and rights of girls and prevent them being the first casualties should communities faced difficulties in future.

Listeners to Hope Village are following the Konakimungu group’s progress and we expect more communities will be planting trees soon that bear fruit now to feed their families, and sustain peace in the long-term.

Amplifying Voices has supported Hope Village with community-centred media training, and with equipment including speakerboxes and a mobile studio to help more community voices take part in making the Hope Village programmes.

The post Tree planting to restore dignity and peace 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trauma is described as:

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

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

The woman above continued her story:

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

Another man spoke and said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Connecting people aids trauma recovery appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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