AudiencScapes

At a time when Kenya is struggling to feed its population following severe droughts, radio programs are educating listeners on better farming techniques in a bid to improve food security. Dinfin Mulupi reports.

Equal Access, an information and education non-profit based in San Francisco, California, has found a new way to use media to address issues of HIV/AIDS and abuse against women in Nepal. The weekly 30-minute “Samajhdari” (Mutual Understanding) radio programme aims to reduce violence and discrimination against HIV-positive women, as well as general violence against women that puts them at higher risk of contracting HIV. AudienceScapes Fellow Paromita Pain reports.....

Relying on a strategy of community input and participation, a community radio station in Uttar Pradesh is changing the lives of villagers. The experience of City Montessori School radio illustrates the challenges and rewards of involving listeners in community radio.

Senegal is experimenting with radio as a means to educate listeners about family planning and other public health issues. Two radio programs are being broadcast with careful attention to covering stories that affect people’s everyday lives.By Paromita PainSenegal is using the popular and entertaining medium of the radio drama to tackle some of its most pressing public health problems. Ngelawu Nawet (“Winds of Hope”) and Coñal Keele  (“Harvesting the Seeds of Life”) are two serial dramas that represent the first time that “entertainment-education” has been attempted in Senegal.  The plots involve serious health issues presented in the form of absorbing narratives.

by Dinfin MulupiAs southern Sudan gets closer to a January 2011 referendum on its independence, tension in the region has been rising with fears of a breakout of war. A radio station broadcasting from Nairobi, Kenya, is transmitting a message of peace and trying to educate the public about why the country should not slip back into the violence of previous decades.The January vote will determine whether the oil-rich South should become independent or remain part of Sudan. The vote is one element of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) reached in 2005. The peace agreement marked the end of years of civil war between rebels in the South and Sudan’s central government.

Community radio programs in India give marginalized groups a voice.By Paromita PainThere has been phenomenal growth in community radios stations in India since the 1990s, with universities playing an active part in the process. The government grants licenses to community radio operators for 100-watt stations covering up to a 12-kilometer radius. Three radio initiatives -- Kishor Vani, Allari Muchchatlu and Sangham Radio -- are perfect examples of NGO interventions at the grassroots level that have enabled impoverished people to harness the power of community radio and have an active voice in the country’s media. Indian community radio stations strive to produce at least 50 percent of their own content with an emphasis on development-related programs in local languages.

By Dinfin Mulupi(Nairobi, Kenya)--In a remote village in Bungoma in Kenya’s Western Province, Cosmas Simiyu Wafukho listens to the radio as he tends to his farm. He inspects the progress of his maize plantation while laughing at jokes and singing along to music played on the Luhya-language Mulembe FM station. The radio plays constantly from under the shade of a nearby tree.

by Gayatri Murthy, AudienceScapes (8 June 2010) Pakistani media authorities captured world attention in mid-May when they imposed bans on Facebook and YouTube. Less noticed abroad, however, was a decision on 28 April 2010 by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to heavily restrict broadcasting by FM stations of the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) Urdu-language news bulletins. Prior to this latest PEMRA move, BBC Urdu bulletins were broadcast 11 times a day on 34 stations. PEMRA completely suspended transmission on 24 stations and restricted the number of bulletins to three times a day on 10 channels located in Punjab province.