TANZANIA – Empowering Youth To Make Healthy Decisions
VOA’s Swahili Service seeks to create a 30-minute radio program, tentatively titled, Dare 2 Dream: Turning Point Decisions, that focuses on HIV/AIDS, gender-based sexual violence (GBSV), tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health and family planning. The show’s mission is to help young people, especially girls, make healthy decisions that impact their lives. VOA will also reach out to the community and distribute appropriate materials to young people.
The show, which will be broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays for maximum impact. The half-hour show will include 1) a call-in show with a host and a medical doctor 2) stories related to HIV/AIDS, GBSV, tuberculosis, malaria, child and maternal health 3) stringer reports and special features from across the country 4) A segment produced by young people who have been trained to report on health issues.
THE DRC – Health Show: Votre Sante Votre Avenir
“Votre Sante Votre Avenir” is a weekly 30mn health show on the fight against AIDS in the Democratic Republic of Congo, produced by the French branch of VOA’s Africa Division.
The show is the first of its kind broadcast by an international broadcaster to the AIDS-stricken Congo where sexual violence and lasting wars and conflicts have developed the spread HIV/AIDS. The Democratic Republic of Congo has one of the world’s highest AIDS prevalence rate.
“Votre Santé Votre Avenir” has 10 stringers in the DRC’s different provinces. Each week, a theme is chosen by the host and stringers work on the production of the reports which they send via Gmail to the Washington producer prior to the taping, set on Wednesdays. The reports are used during the taping and an expert and listeners participate in a live discussion of the subject.
‘Votre Santé Votre Avenir” reaches the most remote areas of the vast country via short waves and is also rebroadcast by all seven affiliates of VOA in the DRC with a special impact brought in by affiliate station RAGA FM which airs nationally in the Congo. On the other hand, the show is also duplicated and distributed to more than a hundred radio stations in remote areas.
BURUNDI – A VOA Radio Program for Entrepreneurship.
VOA’s Central Africa Service seeks to create a weekly, 30-minute program in Kirundi that focuses on encouraging business development among young people in Burundi. Calling All Entrepreneurs will provide news and information about the private sector. It will support the U.S. Government’s objective of stimulating business growth, specifically agri-business including coffee, horticulture and dairy. The show will have a clock of 15-20 minutes for interviews with and stories about entrepreneurs, along with a question-of-the day. The anchor, along with a local business person, will host an “Ask the Business Expert” for the remainder of the program.
The 30-minute show, aired at prime times and repeated, will be divided into: 1) Special reports and stringer stories with a mix of information about starting and running a business. The stories from the field will examine challenges, opportunities and lessons learned. 2) The host will work with a business expert to analyze the businesses profiled in the stories and offer tips to questions that have been emailed or texted during the week.
NIGERIA – Improving Nigeria’s Educational Infrastructure Through Journalism
VOA, the U.S. international broadcasting agency, reaches more than 20 million people weekly in Northern Nigeria through its broadcasts in Hausa. VOA’s mandate from the U.S. Congress includes directives to promote freedom, democracy by supporting international media. Through its robust training program, VOA proposes to work with a cadre of journalists, primarily in Northern Nigeria, to support USAID’s strategy of improving basic education in Nigeria by backing the goals and objectives of the Nigerian Ministry of Education’s roadmap and the President’s African Education Initiative. VOA will apply new techniques including teaching young journalists to use smart-phones for stories and crowd mapping to identify schools with poor, or no, infrastructure.
AFGHANISTAN
On September 10th 2010, The Voice of America launched “Karwan” (Caravan), a bilingual (Dari and Pashto) television program designed to educate and inform young Afghans. This thirty minute magazine-style weekly program targets younger viewers by employing a more mobile and modern format.
Reporting on stories in both Afghanistan and America, the show covers a wide variety of topics, from civil society, rule of law and women’s issues to softer topics like cultural events, sports and the arts.
The host, Daoud Sediqi, serves as the program’s tour guide, presenting the material through a youthful perspective. Karwan is very interactive with its audience on five platforms: Facebook, Karwan website, Email, YouTube and the Karwan blog.
ANGOLA
“Angola Fala So” is a weekly international 30 minute call-in show broadcast every Friday at 18:00 to 18:30 local time.
The program examines a variety of topics from the role of an independent judiciary to press freedom in a democracy to the role of women in today’s societies.
During the show, callers either telephone Washington (collect) or send texts and emails with their questions. The show’s anchor calls back those who submit text messages/emails, seeking listener comments during the show.
BURUNDI
“Ejo Bite” (How About the Future). Was a 30 minute program aimed at young refugees from Rwanda and Burundi (ages 12-16), helping to provide moral relief, engaging them in authentic reconciliation and, providing a life-line of information and hope.
The program also fostered education of young people as educational opportunities rose, profiling people who were making a difference to their families, refugee camps and their communities.
The program included a radio drama series of 52 programs on themes and issues of concern to young refugees.
NIGERIA
With very successful reporting centers in Abuja and Kano the Hausa Service of the Africa Division provides weekly reports about critical health issues to the largest audience in the African continent.
“Hausa Health” programming brings together audiences and experts to discuss issues such as HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Polio as well as mother to child transmission of various diseases.
The program also set up round tables and town hall meetings around each one of the health topics discussed with large audiences in attendance.
MOZAMBIQUE
“Vida Sem Medo” (Life without Fear”) is part of the very popular Portuguese program “Your Health Your Future” broadcast weekly to Mozambique. The primary focus of the broadcast is to address issues around HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.
The 30 minute show is aired on weekends and consists of two parts: a call-in show with a local host and medical doctor receiving and answering questions related to the set topics and stringer’s reports/features from across the country about community-based health programs and their impact at the local level on prevention and treatment of all the health topics.
SUDAN
“Sudan in Focus” is a daily (M-F) multi-media English news program focusing on news and events in southern Sudan and the region. The program is co-hosted from a bureau in Juba, the future capital of the soon-to-be-independent Republic of South Sudan, and Washington, DC. Reporting focuses on the transition to independence, including issues of democratization, development, and health. Two Town Hall/Public Debate meetings have been held in Juba, with a third one scheduled for late June.
Sudan in Focus is heard at 7:30 PM on FM stations in Juba, Yambio, Yei, and Maridi, and is working on agreements with other stations interested in running the show, including the Voice Of The People. The program is also broadcast on shortwave and can be heard throughout the region, including northern Sudan. The program’s Khartoum based stringer reports that dozens of people have called him to let him know they hear his reports on VOA and another stringer says that on a reporting trip to Northern Bahr el Ghazal State people told him Sudan in Focus is “doing great work.”
ZIMBABWE
“Studio 7” is a daily newscast that brings to a large audience in Zimbabwe news, information and special reports in three languages: English, Shona and Ndebele. The show is broadcast in SW, FM and Satellite as well as SMS headline news to mobile devices. The website has thousands of daily hits proven the popularity and impact of their content.
A loyal listenership is kept abreast of social and political changes, health issues, economic and trade topics as well as social, cultural and sport events within Zimbabwe throughout a large Diaspora in Africa and other countries around the world.
