Radio for Development

Last year R4D received an email from Godspower Oboido, who’d visited the website and wanted to get in touch regarding an exciting new initiative he had started in Nigeria. Godspower is, in his own words, “on a mission to get rural communities across Africa listening to radio” – and he founded the “Listen Africa” project “to radically encourage radio for change”. Luckily Godspower was visiting the UK long enough for a meeting at Birmingham City University, where the clip below was recorded.

In the video he discusses the plans of “Listen Africa” to create various educational radio programmes which reflect the curriculum of the Nigerian Ministry of Education. In 2013, Listen Africa intends to set up listeners clubs in Nigeria, Malawi and Ethiopia  – “giving listeners the opportunity to voice their opinions in the broadcasting of issues that has a direct impact on them”.

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R4D returns to Bush Radio – believed to be Africa’s oldest community radio station project – which is based in Cape Town, South Africa on 89.5 MHz FM. This audio slideshow follows up on comments made in an earlier post regarding “Hate Radio”; 20th of Nov. 2010.

The idea of Bush Radio started in the 1980’s when community activists and alternative media producers began to explore ways of using grassroots media for social change – and as an alternative voice to the media available under apartheid.

For more information visit; www.bushradio.co.za

Or check out this excellent link…

In this clip – the head of news at Radio Nigeria, based at the Lagos Head Office, discusses their service – the station’s history, and introduces you to the News Dept.

Radio Nigeria is a member of the FRCN’s mediumwave service, and has 25 stations located throughout the country. Together with Voice of Nigeria, it’s one of the largest radio networks in Africa.

This is an interview with Papa Mbongo, publicity specialist at the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

Recorded: Auckland Park, Johannesburg,

July, 2010.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the state-owned broadcaster in South Africa and provides 18 radio stations (AM/FM) as well as 3 television broadcasts to the general public.

The SABC was established by an Act of Parliament in 1936 taking over from the African Broadcasting Company which had been responsible for some of the first radio broadcasts in South Africa in the 1920s. The SABC established services in what were then the country’s official languages, English and Afrikaans, with ethnic languages such as Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho and Tswana following later.

The University of Dar Es Salaam is the oldest and biggest public university in Tanzania. One of its schools is the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) which offers Bachelor degree programs in Journalism and Mass Communication. In this audio slideshow Maria Alphonce, a student at the school, discusses the school’s community radio station “Mlimani Radio, 106.5 FM – which provides a valuable “hands-on” experience for media students to practice what they’ve learnt in the classroom.

For more info visit their website here…

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This post and slideshow is a follow-up to an earlier article about the partnership between Birmingham City University and the Press Union of Liberia.

Peter Quaqua, the President of the Press Union, visited the University and met with myself and Liberian radio student Douglas Farngalo – and we had the chance to talk about the state of radio in Liberia and the media in general…

Douglas also discussed a scheme to send the University’s decommissioned portable audio recorders – along with new microphones / cables / batteries / training manuals etc. – to the Press Union in Liberia so they could be distributed to Community Radio Stations.

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Addis Ababa: Ethiopia
This entry features the Dean of the Faculty of Journalism and Communication, at Addis Ababa University.

The interview discusses the University’s various radio and media courses – as well as the Dean’s thoughts on Journalism in general in Ethiopia…

A country well known for its poor reputation for free press…
And for the Govts. harsh treatment of reporters.

Addis Ababa University is the oldest institution of higher education in Ethiopia – and their radio classes are proving to be very popular.

They aim to develop their radio courses in the future by establishing a “real world” community radio station on campus.

This interview was recorded in July, 2010.

Thanks to the British Council in Addis for their assistance in arranging the meeting.

The Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) is Nigeria’s publicly-funded radio broadcaster.

Their subsidiaries include;

The Voice of Nigeria international service

Radio Nigeria domestic network.
In this clip, Philips Robinson Adefioye takes you on a tour of Radio Nigeria and Voice of Nigeria in Lagos, introducing staff behind the scenes and discussing various aspects of the FRCN operation.

Radio Nigeria is part of the FRCN’s mediumwave service. In 2007, FRCN began introducing FM transmitters in some locations, and plans to upgrade and modernise its shortwave and medium wave transmitters in the near future.

Funke-Treasure Durodola is a radio presenter at Metro FM, Lagos, Nigeria. In this clip she discusses the diversity of Nigerian radio, gender equality in presenting staff, training issues and the enduring popularity of radio in everyday life – amongst other things.

Metro FM is one of the 5 nationwide stations run by the FRCN (Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria) acrosss Nigeria. The network’s mission is to be;

“An impartial, credible, proactive broadcast medium in the forefront of Nigeria’s national development, unity and progress”

Their vision is:

“To create and maintain a broadcast outfit that will serve as a model in Nigeria and Africa in terms of standards, professionalism and character.”

Their mandate is:

“To uplift the people and unite the nation.”