Opening doors in Sargodha

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

Amplifying with care

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

From rage to peace

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

See all project updates from Roshni ro Ghar

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

Opening doors in Sargodha

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

Amplifying with care

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

From rage to peace

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

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

Sometimes looked down on as the poor relation of television and certainly considered old-fashioned compared to social media, radio is still the one to watch.  That may sound like a bad pun, but the influence of local community-centred radio is rising like never before.  It is still the most pervasive, accessible, affordable, and flexible mass medium available. In rural areas, it is often the only mass medium available.  Combine it with modern messaging apps like WhatsApp and social media like Facebook and put it in the hands of communities themselves, its power to influence change is unquestionable.  It expands the spaces for conversation where people can talk, listen and take action.

In conversations recently with leaders of the radio stations we helped set up, they recounted numerous stories of how community-centred radio has helped kick-start micro-enterprises, stopped a terrorist attack from taking place, become a forum for trauma-healing after violent conflict, combatted rumours and misinformation, empowered girls against sexual predators, helped improve food security, and become the only school for children during the Covid pandemic.

Central to all of these stories is that community-centred radio puts communities at the heart of the communication process, where they become agents of change not objects to change.  It helps connect communities with the expert service providers who are wanting to support positive change. It helps them to determine their own path to development and well-being.  It amplifies the voices of those whose voices have been lost or drowned out by those more powerful.

As our Amplifying Voices team anticipate a post-pandemic world, where we look forward to physically engaging again with partners, we’re excited about the many opportunities that are presenting themselves across Africa and Asia for community-centred radio and allied media projects.  Besides the misinformation that we witnessed during the pandemic, we also saw a plethora of unhelpful, top-down communication, rooted in telling, not listening. For that reason I am convinced, more than ever, that  Amplifying Voices has a really important role to play today, to challenge and redress this situation.

The post Radio: The One to Watch appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

Amplifying with care

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

Things no-one talks about

Bright Home (or Rokhan-e-Kore in Pashtu) helps women to create new opportunities for themselves and their families in ...

Listen – then listen again

In a village in Pakistan, we were recently reminded why it is so important to listen, then listen ...

Read all Outcome Stories from Rokhan-e-kore, Nowshera

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

This presents a challenge … how could we honour our commitment to listening to community members, to hearing the stories, concerns and aspirations that will guide the project? We are delighted to be working with Hope for Relief and CDN who held a community consultation with members of Kawale community, on the outskirts of Chitipa at the end of July. Thoko from CDN and Richard from Hope for Relief worked closely with us to understand the questions we had for the community.

Some things that we learned …

• Around a third of the meeting participants use WhatsApp to communicate. These were mainly younger people, professionals, leaders and business people.
• People feel that the lack of a community radio station is hindering community development as it slows down communication.
• They like the idea of using speakerboxes to share community media … several people in the community already use speakerboxes for playing music.
• Another way of communicating in Kawale is through the chief’s messengers who go about in the village spreading information. They use a drum to get people’s attention. When people hear a drum they know that there is a special message from the chief about to come.

We used WhatsApp video calls alongside some pre-recorded training videos to introduce the community-centred media approach to five community volunteers and three project workers who met in the CDN office. The workshop participants sent us photos of flipcharts with their responses to discussion exercises. The participants spoke Lambya (the local language of Chitipa) during the discussions. This made it a very strange experience as a trainer – not being able to participate fully, and only seeing some sections of the discussion, it was a good exercise in placing our trust in the local partner to facilitate the learning process.

Thoko facilitates workshop in Chitipa, Aug 2021

But why the rush, why hold a remote community workshop not just wait until next year and go and visit?

Malawi, similarly to surrounding African countries, has just passed through the peak of a third wave of Covid-19 infections, which is of particular concern because of the impact and potential for further spread in rural areas coupled with the slow progress in vaccinations.

Malawi has so far received only a small about amount of vaccine (700k doses, for an adult population of 11 million). We also learned that people are reluctant to get the vaccine because of rumours such as:

• Coivd-19 is not for Malawians but for Chinese or white people.
• If someone accesses the vaccine he or she will become infertile.
• If someone gets vaccinated, he or she will be infected by the HIV virus.
• The vaccine is there to reduce the population of the people.
• If someone gets vaccinated he or she will reduce his lifespan.

The Kawale Community Voices project will initially focus on addressing the concerns or fears that drive these Covid rumours, by encouraging community dialogue about Covid vaccines based on access to reliable information sources.

Based on our experience in India and Uganda, we know that creating podcasts and distributing speakerboxes is a rapidly deployable and reliable way to get people talking, listening and taking action to reduce the impact of Covid-19. Speakerboxes are available in local markets, and podcasts can be created using voice recorder and a laptop.

However, we also recognise that radio is the community’s preferred media source. In the medium term, once we are able to visit the community in person, we hope to support Kawale’s residents and service providers to develop a community-centred radio station.

The post Workshopping remotely in Malawi appeared first on Amplifying Voices.

The post Naway Saher – Charsadda appeared first on Amplifying Voices.