DENVER, CO., February 12 (IPS) – The United Nations celebrates World Radio Day on February 13, Jessica Love is Executive Director of AfricaAid, which supports robust, locally-led mentorship initiatives that instill confidence, improve academic and health outcomes, and advance socially responsible leadership skills. Find out more at AfricAid.org. Last fall, 45-year-old Musa, a father of four, turned on the radio at his home in Arusha, Tanzania. While searching for his favorite station, he heard the presenter of a program about girls that he later described as “striking”. He wanted to know what would happen next.
He stumbled upon “Safari ya Binti” (A Girl’s Journey), an experimental radio program created by GLAMI (Girls’ Livelihoods and Counseling Initiative), a Tanzanian nongovernmental organization that runs extracurricular mentoring programs for high school girls.
In a culture that often reinforces the narrative that girls are weak, are less important than boys, and that confidence and determination are rude, GLAMI is working to turn this narrative on its head. By matching girls with university-educated Tanzanian mentors, GLAMI shows its students that they have the power to write their own futures – and then teach the skills to do so.
“I realized that girls are capable of doing what boys can do, and there is no limit to what they can do. I noticed this by listening to the testimonies of the girl in the sessions.” He was not alone in experiencing this shift in position. GLAMI found that a number of participants in other focus groups have also experienced significant changes in the way they view their girls, and in the way girls view themselves. “I had doubts that women could be leaders, but I am now starting to believe that girls are born leaders. I even began to see that my wife is capable of making huge decisions for the well-being of the family,” said Balongo, father of a GLAMI scientist, who listened. To the radio program. Nengarivo, registered in the GLAMI mentorship program, shared, “There were times after the school opened when I thought the world was coming to an end. Coronavirus was a threat, and I had a lot of dreams that I wanted to fulfill, but the coronavirus outbreak made me lose a lot of Hopes due to the fact that our guides only visited us twice a month, contrary to their usual schedule.
But when Safari ya Binti came, I was really excited to start over and get my hopes up again. … I consider myself a change-maker and I think I’m a leader, and I’m not afraid of taking any action to save my community. ”This year, the United Nations World Radio Day celebrates development, innovation and communication at a time when radio has provided perhaps one of the most important lifeblood of recent memory. From organizations, radio was an opportunity.
Creative radio-inspired styles like Safari ya Binti. Radio enables organizations to stay in contact with the communities they serve from a safe distance. Radio provided the opportunity to reach wider audiences with messages that inspired, informed, and changed attitudes. The only downside to the radio? “I hope everything that was discussed will be repeated so that new listeners can learn everything,” said Lillian, the mother of a girl on the GLAMI program.
A promotional video link created for the program: https://youtu.be/z8yAyh3qlY0
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© Inter Press Service (2021) – All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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