Rural Radio Magazine increasing participation of marginalized groups in hard to reach communities

Rural radio magazine came in after realizing that very few women & youth were participating in live radio talk shows. ToroDev in partnership with Jubilee radio for a long time has done tremendous work in reaching the communities to collect the views and opinions on the state of public service delivery issues especially on education, health & economic sustainability in a way of making the said marginalized groups participate in the affairs of the state of governance issues & also reach duty bearers to seek their responses.

On 27^th September,2016 Mr. Mukonyezi Wilfred the moderator of ‘Listeners forum’ program on Jubilee radio travelled to Kihoiga & Rwabaganda villages in Hima parish Bugaki sub county in Kyenjojo district where he met 25 women & 10 youths. The focus is on this group of people because the weekly live radio talk shows are always done during night where the said category of people are unable to participate due to a number of factors hence need to find them from their communities to share with us what is on ground and how they hope things should be run by their elected leaders/duty bearers.

Some community members from Kihoiga village during the Rural Radio Magazine

During the rural radio magazine field, it was discovered that the sub county does not have a government aided secondary school as it is the requirement by the ministry of education and sports to have a secondary school in every sub county making children walk long distances to access education. ‘’Our children walk over 10 kilometers in order to access education and this affects their performance because they leave home early and come back late & very tired, they sometimes fail to read their books, we request government to construct a secondary school with in our sub county and also build a technical school that will offer vocational studies to our children in order for them to acquire skills on a number of things hence fighting unemployment by starting their own businesses & improving their incomes’’, said Ms Keneema Sarah during the rural radio magazine field in Bugaki sub county.

Under the health sector, the sub county has no health centre 111 as required by the ministry of health and the health centre 11 is not fully furnished. ‘’we have only one health centre 11 in the sub county and people walk long distances to access services, this affects women more especially pregnant mothers and it becomes worse when we reach the health centre for antenatal services and the heath workers are not available or drugs are not there, we appeal to government to construct a health centre 111 and also avail required drugs in health centre 11’s in order to improve the health standards in our sub county’’, said Rehema Blick a community member in Kihoiga village.

Community members from Kihoiga & Kyabaganda villages during the Rural Radio Magazine in Bugaki sub county

‘’Our area still luck safe & clean water and yet we elect leaders, water borne diseases are affecting us because health workers and our leaders have not paid attention to these issues, we request our leaders to act and play their roles other than just sitting in their offices when people are suffering’’, said Rose Kwikiriza a community member during the rural radio magazine.

‘’The roads are in bad condition because of the lorries from the tea company which makes them impassable especially during rainy season, expectant mothers suffer before accessing the health centres and also marketing of our produce is affected’’, said Fredrick Said from Hima Parish in Bugaki sub-county.

''we call upon our leaders to mobilize people to participate in government programs of wealth creation, support community based savings & credit especially for women and youth so that we are able to work and improve our house hold incomes and also request government to reduce taxes we pay for our small businesses if we are to develop economically’’, said Rose Mary Mugisa from Hima parish during the rural radio magazine.

The issues collected from the field are always amplified live on ToroDev’s ‘Listeners forum’ program that is aired live every Sunday 8:00pm-10:00pm where listeners participate by calling in & sending Sms to contribute to the talk show/debate and this is aimed at calling the attention of the leaders to react on the said issues.

We take this great opportunity to thank all our partners; NED, SIDA, SPIDER, ICT4DEM, CIPESA & Jubilee radio for keeping our people active and participating in development programs of their communities.