The enduring power of radio for agricultural extension in Africa
A radio programme that works across sub-Saharan Africa has adopted interactive digital tools to better reach men and women farmers with agricultural and climate information to support production decisions. With good information, small-scale farmers can make better decisions. Access to information and free discussion is a tool of empowerment, especially for citizens who are geographically, economically or socially disadvantaged.
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How a community radio gives voice to the climate-vulnerable in Tamil Nadu
After Cyclone Gaja wreaked havoc in Tamil Nadu, a community radio station in Nagapattinam district started an initiative called “Voice of the Vulnerable”. The initiative aims to engage and empower coastal communities with stories of environment and climate change affecting their everyday lives. The radio station also conducts community journalism workshops to train the youth about the various issues in the regions and also ways to report them.
Click here to read the article written by Kartik Chandramouli as part of the Mongabay Series: Environment and Her.
Youth-led communication for social change: empowerment, citizen media, and cultures of governance in Northern Ghana (Development in Practice 28(3):400-413, April 2018)
This article critically assesses the possibilities and limitations of strategic communication initiatives to enhance cultures of governance among youth in Northern Ghana. The analysis is embedded within contemporary debates about communication and social change, with particular focus upon dynamics between citizen media development, youth-centred citizen journalism, and processes of community mobilisation and development. Findings suggest that the project has opened up to dynamic, youth-led social change processes, evidenced by the creative, proactive enactment of citizen engagement. Youth changed not only their self-perception around agency and ability to act, but also influenced community development in a variety of ways.
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Redesigning an education project for child friendly radio: a multisectoral collaboration to promote children’s health, education, and human rights after a humanitarian crisis in Sierra Leone (BMJ 2018; 363 :k4667)
In May 2014, Sierra Leone reported its first case of Ebola in Kailahun, a remote, marginalised, and impoverished district bordering Liberia. The district had one of the highest concentrations of Ebola infections during this outbreak. After this, over 1600 children were orphaned and gender inequalities were exacerbated . Public health control measures put in place by the government of Sierra Leone included closing all schools and prohibiting public congregation.
The educational programme “Getting Ready for School”, funded by the UK charity Comic Relief, had been operating since its launch in 2011 within 21 schools in Kailahun. While many other educational services stopped entirely in Kailahun, the Getting Ready for School programme was redesigned as a radio education programme called Pikin to Pikin Tok (PtPT), meaning Child to Child Talk, in Krio. The lead consortium partner was Child to Child, a UK based international child rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) (www.childtochild.org.uk), and the lead implementing partner was Pikin-To-Pikin (www.pikintopikin.org), a local NGO. The goals and objectives of the project changed in response to the circumstances in Sierra Leone; this required a substantially different approach by the redesigned scheme than in the original project. The entire effort, from starting the school project to the end of the radio project, ran from 2011 to 2016.
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