VOICES FROM THE FIELD: Lisa Inks in Sierra Leone

Lisa Inks is an intern at Search for Common Ground Sierra Leone.

Search for Common Ground, known in West Africa as Talking Drum Studio, supports community radio as a tool for peacebuilding. Owned and operated by community members, these radio stations often serve as rural communities’ only means of communication, providing audience-generated content and programs on local issues. Radio Wanjei is one such partner station, located in Sierra Leone’s Pujehun District—considered one of the country’s most underdeveloped areas. Talking Drum Studio provides training, programs, and other support to Radio Wanjei, which, since its establishment in 2006, helps to inform and educate the Pujehun community.

Day of the African Child, Day of the Child Radio

Fourteen-year-old Paul Kpakra moderates a discussion about the rights and responsibilities of the child on Radio Wanjei, Pujehun District’s community radio. Paul and his classmates took charge of the radio station on June 16 to celebrate the Day of the African Child.

Children made their voices ring across Sierra Leone’s Pujehun District by taking to the airwaves on June 16th, the Day of the African Child. On this important day commemorating the 1976 massacre of children in Soweto, South Africa, each year young people gather in the district capital of Pujehun town to perform plays, sing songs, and broadcast their views through Radio Wanjei, a community-owned radio station and the only station in the district. This year, 14-year-old Paul Kpakra moderated the boys’ on-air discussion about the rights and responsibilities of the child, which followed a girls’ discussion on the same topic.

For Paul, a junior secondary school student who has taken part in Radio Wanjei’s community discussions in the past, going on the radio is a good way to bring up important issues for kids. “Many parents don’t know our rights and we, the children, don’t know our rights sometimes. So we go on the radio to let them know,” Paul said. “We also have responsibilities, and we are telling the government.” During the radio discussion, Paul, as moderator, posed questions to his peers about the rights of the child to “sensitize people and educate colleagues.”

While Paul presented the discussion, Radio Wanjei staff member Mustapha Abubakar—Mustapha, like all staff at Radio Wanjei, volunteers his time to the station—stood by for technical assistance. Paul’s classmates packed themselves into the station’s guest studio on the other side of the glass, filling the small, hot room with dialogue and laughter. In a town with scarce electricity, the radio station is run entirely by a donated generator, which uses fuel that is sometimes paid for out of the pockets of the volunteer staff members themselves. Radio Wanjei is one of many community radio stations throughout West Africa supported by Talking Drum Studio.

After the holiday, students were grateful to the station staff for the chance to bring up issues that matter to them. Paul said, “They gave us great responsibility and opportunity on that day.”