Analysis: Looking at Community Radio in Africa

"Effective forms of communication are powerful tools. They create a new reality in which coordination is possible, information provided, invitations offered and warnings delivered. There are places in Africa where community radio has done all these things...where the needs of poor people are heard and addressed by those who care; where the community seeks answers and speaks them to itself through community radio."

In June 2006, the author of this analysis piece, Mike Hickcox of the United Methodist News Service (UMNS), traveled to South Africa, Uganda and Kenya to visit some of the community radio stations being launched and sustained to share information and raise awareness. The trip was motivated by the following question/challenge: Can the United Methodist Church find ways to help its conferences in Africa reach the people, speak to their own members, and alleviate suffering - caused by HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other challenges of various kinds - through the development of community radio? This article details Hickcox's findings, tracing trends in this medium while also offering strategies for its continued effective use.

For instance,

• In Cape Town, South Africa's "colored neighborhoods of small homes placed side-by-side...[and] black shantytowns", people tend to listen to Bush Radio, "a station of the people." The man who created this station has said, "Community radio is 90-percent community and 10-percent radio" - and, as Hickcox found on his journey, Bush Radio "remains an ongoing community event. Every Saturday, the Children's Radio Education Workshop takes to the air. Children and teenagers from the community prepare programming and broadcast from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Bush Radio personnel appear in the townships and neighborhoods regularly, bringing a meal and listening to the people. From the people come the issues and the programs that go on air."
• In Kampala, Uganda, Hickcox found several stations, such as MAMA FM, which was created in the late 1990s by the Uganda Media Women's Association to focus on the needs of women and those living in poverty. MAMA FM addresses issues such as health care, legal concerns, land and human rights, economic empowerment, education, good governance, leadership, religion, agriculture, peace building, environment and politics. The women journalists bring in experts to speak about these issues; the station also holds public forums. To cite one of the other examples highlighted here, Prime Radio is run by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and funded largely by a communication school it operates in one section of its building. The remainder of the building houses the radio station and has space allotted for a future television station. Like the other stations visited, Prime Radio depends on volunteer assistance, but also employs 34 people, "far more than other stations we visited."
• In Nairobi, Kenya, RECA Radio - an outgrowth of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Relief & Environmental Care Africa - is planning to go on air in the autumn of 2006, with mostly locally produced programming (with a small percentage delivered by satellite from a health-focused agency in the United States). The author highlights the importance of local involvement, noting that "programming needs will be defined with input from the women's groups in the surrounding villages....The radio station is an outgrowth of the existing health and welfare programs and will be a way to extend the reach of these programs." Women's groups in the villages of the listening areas of EcoNews Africa's station also determine programming; these stations also focus on social issues and health, with an emphasis on the needs and resources of women.

The author concludes by stressing the power of radio to reach people wherever they live, even those who cannot read. He emphasises the importance of radio broadcasts in many languages, including the local colonial language as well as Kiswahili and local languages. In addition to drawing on and stimulating the collective power of women's groups in the region, community radio can be "an excellent way to deliver accurate information on health care, and it helps to counter much of the misinformation commonly distributed in conversation." Yet, this particular medium "is just one possible component of the communication solution, and issues of staffing, financial support and sustainability must be addressed. Cell phones, ham radio, business radio, and the Internet may also be necessary pieces of the answer."