CI: Can you describe how you got involved in Communication for Developmentto begin with and what continues to excite you about your work?

JS: I came into Communication for Development through the Federation ofAfrican Media Women. I am one of the founding members of the organisationand through the organisation, we decided to start a project at thegrassroots level which was going to help empower rural communities. Ouremphasis was on the development of women in rural areas and the developmentof women journalists. Most women journalists do not receive much training –many do not have any degree or certificate and we felt that journalism beinga male-dominated profession, needed women to prepare themselves so that theycould take up the various positions within the media. So from the start theorganisation adopted a 2-pronged approach: one – to support the professionalwoman journalist; two – to link our own development as media women, as womenjournalists, to the development of grassroots women - marginalisedcommunities - but our emphasis was more on the woman, because we realisedthat the woman, especially in rural areas just did not have a voice. Westarted the project called Development Through Radio. It is a RadioListening Club concept, but the emphasis of the project is that women aretrained to produce their own radio programmes. So actually, what we aredoing is training rural women to become radio producers. This is how I cameinto Communication for Development.

CI: In our last conversation with you, two years ago, we spoke a bit aboutthe Federation of African Media Women and the Development Through Radioprojects. Have there been new projects, new developments?

JS: I do not think that we had started working in West Africa, when I lastspoke with you. The DTR project was then in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi,Angola and South Africa. The project has since been replicated in Namibia,Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. And since then we have also opened 2community radio stations in Malawi and Mozambique. In Malawi it is beingrun by our local partner, the Malawi Media Women's Association and inMozambique it is the Mozambique Women in Social Communications (AMSC).

CI: Do you have plans for other stations?

JS: Actually, yes – we do have plans for other stations. We are also goingto introduce the Development Through Radio concept within the communityradio station in Mozambique before the end half of next year. We areplanning to start community radio stations in other countries as well. Forinstance in Zimbabwe, we want to, but we cannot because the airwaves are notyet open for other players. This is very difficult for us as Zimbabwe wasthe first country we had wanted to operate a community radio station – thatwas in the early 1980s. So we are looking at probably having a station withour local partners in other African countries where there is an enablinglegal and political environment. There is a great need for information inthe communities in which FAMW is working. So I am hoping we can start withSierra Leone as you are aware there was civil war for about ten years andpeople need community radio stations to enable them to tell their storiesand to start the healing process. In Nigeria since the airwaves are opensome of our partners have indicated that they would like to operate theirown community radio stations.

CI: In terms of the Development Through Radio programme, is it proving tobe sustainable from within?

JS: Yes, it is. We started in 1988 in Zimbabwe and the project is stillrunning. And it does not have lots of overhead costs. As long as we havevery strong agreements with the national broadcasters and other communityradio stations it becomes easy for it to be sustainable. The only difficultsituation is when you get to a situation where the radio station asks you topay for airtime every time you broadcast. But with most of our partners, wereceive free airtime. One partner bought equipment for the state and federalradio stations as a way of paying for the airtime. But in most countries wedo not pay for airtime at all. We have an agreement where we formpartnerships with the national or community broadcasters.

CI: And there have been some economic sustainability projects from withinthe DTR projects for the women involved. Is that correct?

JS: Yes. We realised that it would be very difficult to sustain theproduction of programmes because some women walk 10 kilometers to produce a radio programme. Imagine that. And we asked ourselves how many times canwomen do that, how long can one sustain that? We came up with the idea ofstarting income-generating projects that would strengthen the economic basefor the project for instance, the project would be able to buy its ownbatteries, repair its own radios, and for women to have some extra income.Our hope was that women would be basically “married” to this project …sothat they themselves become the owners of the project. And by so doing, weare hoping that women will be rejuvenated will be committed, will beenthusiastic, that they will be eager to continue working on the project.And this is basically what's happening.

CI: And is this true for all of the regional DTR projects?

JS: Yes, women are involved in income-generating activities through the DTRprojects in all of the countries in which we are working.

CI: From your perspective, have media trends moved or changed in the lasttwo years in the areas in which you are working?

JS: Yes – they have changed a lot. Mainly in Anglophone Africa. In thepast there was a strong community radio movement in Francophone Africa, andnot in Anglophone Africa. But the movement in Anglophone Africa has reallygained a lot of momentum…with so many community radio stations being opened in sub-Saharan Africa. Where we are working in Mozambique for instance there is a barrage of community radio stations, and lots of them have been opened in the last one to two years. So more and more countries are opening up their airwaves and more radio stations are being set up in a number of countries. South Africa seems to be the leader as they have the largestnumber of community radio stations I think in the whole of Africa. Zimbabwesadly is one of the few countries that is allergic to community radiostations.

CI: And these are being coordinated by the communities themselves?

JS: Yes. In a number of cases. But of course, you do have some which comein as community radio stations when in essence they are commercial, privateradio stations whose bottom line is profit – as opposed to the communityradio station which looks at a development perspective and puts thecommunities at the center of the project.

CI: Here at the Roundtable there has been a lot of discussion about the“liberalisation of the media” particularly in Africa. People are speakingof “freedom” and an “opening up of the media”. Is that your perspective?

JS: Of course. Of course. Of course. I am one person who believes inpluralism and diversity of the media. We need airwaves to be liberalised,we need as many players as possible, so that the populations can benefitfrom a wide variety of media and it will be up to them to then choose whatthey want. They should have many choices in terms of information. They canprocess the information that they want to process and use it for whateverbenefit. And they can decide to discuss or not to discuss. It shouldreally be left to the populations to decide on whether “I want to read thispaper…” or “I don't want to read this paper…” or “I want to listen to thisradio station…” or I don't want to listen to this radio station…” - asopposed to governments trying to stifle the growth of media organisations inAfrica. I think the print media has always been good in terms of pluralism.They have always had, at one point or another, quite a good number ofprivate and independent newspapers coming up to strengthen the democraciesthat we have. But the broadcasting media, in some countries, for instancein Zimbabwe, seems to be very stagnant in that area and the preserve ofgovernments. This sadly undermines the democracies that we so much want tostrengthen. However, monopolies of the airwaves by governments is destinedto fail in the medium to long term.

CI: And do you think that that is happening now?

JS: In some countries it is happening. There are countries where it ishappening where there are lots of newspapers, radio stations – independentradio stations, community radio stations, so yes, in some countries it ishappening. But in some countries, the pace is very slow. And also – thewhole issue of issuing of license becomes very subjective because once theissuing of licenses and frequencies is controlled by government, governmentcan take its time to decide whether to give you a license or not and if theydo not want you and do not like you, they will not give you a license. Sothe whole process is very subjective in terms of who gets the license. Thequestion is, are our governments really genuine in wanting to ensure thatthere is a free flow of information. I doubt so in a number of countrieslicenses are issued to people who will toe the line maintain the status quo.So those are some of the critical issues that you think about when you talkabout pluralism. And in some countries you are told that in thisgeographical area, all of the licenses have been given away the allfrequencies have been taken. And if you want a community radio station, youmight have it in some area, somewhere, other than the one that you want. Inpolitically volatile countries our governments do not want to share theairwaves with its population. They want to maintain the monopoly, asituation that is completely crazy. Actually in some countries you findthat people are being “regimented” by being bombarded on a daily basis withinformation that will maintain the status quo.

CI: In your opinion, whose voice, or what voices, not presently given highprofile and weight in development processes, in development discussions,need to be listened to more often?

JS: It depends on who your partner is. For instance, for me, working withgrassroots communities, I need to listen to the grassroots communities -what the grassroots communities are saying. I need to listen to that. Ifit is a relationship of NGOs and donors, the donors need to listen to whatthe NGOs are saying. So it depends on what level we are talking. Thestronger partner needs to listen to the weaker partner so that they getcorrect information. Because if you go into a community and you go with theattitude of “I know it all,” communities are very intelligent – they willknow what you want and they will tell you what you want to hear, and not thereality of the situation. That is why it is always good to go into acommunity and basically becoming one of them. That is why I spend a gooddeal of my time in rural communities – they become very open, they tell youexactly what they think. It gives you an opportunity to just listen andhear what they are saying so that you are able to implement or help themimplement in areas where they feel they want to contribute. They will tellyou what project they want to be involved in and which projects they feelcan easily address their own situation and conditions. They should be ableto define their own development and development should not be parachuted tothem from the top. That will be a recipe for disaster.

CI: In the context in which you work, do you feel that we are winning orlosing?

JS: I think it is a long process. It is a very long process, because thechallenges are changing by the day. For instance, now we are faced with thewhole issue of HIV/AIDS and information related to HIV/AIDS – it is a bigissue – and we are just grappling around with the issue ourselves and thatin itself is a major challenge. So – the various needs in communities,people's aspirations, are changing by the day. It becomes very importantfor us to respond to the various needs, frustrations, things that makecommunities cry and laugh – to be able to respond to all of those, and to beable to feed the type of information that the communities want. So thechallenges are becoming even greater and bigger by the day.

CI: And every day, a new challenge?

JS: Oh yes, every day new challenges. When you are working in ruralcommunities…on a daily basis you are able to recognise the differentchallenges that manifest themselves within the different communities.

CI: If you were able to double your budget, what would you do?

JS: Oh – I wish you were actually doubling my budget! There is so much thatwe need to do! We would want to open community radio stations, we wouldwant to expand our DTR projects. We would want more women at the grassrootslevel to be part and parcel of the processes that we are talking about – tobe able to be fully involved in disseminating information that they want todisseminate - to be able to produce programmes that they want to produce.So that is one thing that I would want to do. And to have as many communityradio stations as possible within the communities that we work. I wouldwant to use theatre for development as a way of mobilising communities tostart identifying their own issues within their own communities, using thetraditional communications methods that they know best - theatre, drama,song, storytelling. We would want to have a production studio - a radioproduction studio - that would produce all of the programmes that I wastalking about – the radio drama serials.

We would need our own facility. That is one of the areas that we are reallyvigorously fundraising for. Another is that we would want vehicles becausemost of our programmes are in rural areas…so we would want 4 by 4's whichwould enable people to have access to the areas where the project has beenintroduced or implemented. We want telecenters, we want computers, youknow…it is a big list. And also, within the community radio station - womenare already working in groups – this could also serve as a counselingcenter – with people who have been trained in counseling to counsel peopleinfected and affected with HIV/AIDS. So – there are so many things that canbe done within that community radio station in terms of addressing issues.As I have said before, sometimes you end up counseling people, but you arenot trained in counseling. So if there could be more people at the locallevel who are trained in those very critical areas, who then respond and usethe facility of the community radio station, that would really be ideal.

CI: Are there any new projects that you are just not able to do at thispoint?

JS: Yes. We would want to produce programmes, radio drama serials, thataddress the issue of HIV/AIDS, for instance, which can be circulatedthroughout our projects and partners. There are issues that are verysimilar – the issue of HIV/AIDS for instance - from one country to theother. The magnitude might be different, but the issues are the same. Sowe would like to package programmes and be able to disseminate them to thevarious radio stations we are working with, to the DTR projects themselves,so that women start engaging at all levels in terms of the issue ofHIV/AIDS. And not just HIV/AIDS but, also the issue of gender-basedviolence, which is still one of the big issues. The radio serials wouldtalk about an issue and address it in one episode. So we will start oneissue after the other with a thread running through, which would link all ofthe programmes together. So you could have a 52-week radio drama serial ora 13 –week radio drama serial. This would captivate the attention ofcommunities. Another big thing that we want to do, which we have starteddoing with some of our partners, is the introduction of a virtual newsroom.Where women journalists go in to bombard the west with stories coming fromAfrica, written by Africans, and these stories would, among other issues,include stories on HIV/AIDS. The women journalists would also write storiesfrom our rural audiences…so that we are able to upload our stories on theinternet, and to download information and stories that can be fed into ourprogrammes. This would create a strong linkage between these womenjournalists and the rural communities. And they would be able to exchangeinformation with each other. What is happening at the local level could bebasically covered and sent out to the world, and at the same time beaccessible to those communities.

CI: So those stories would then also be on your community radio stations?

JS: Yes – if we had money, of course we would want telecentres or communityaccess centres. It would be like a one-stop-shop. Where women - and notjust women, but communities as a whole, would be able to view a video, watchtelevision, listen to a radio, read newspapers and have a post office andother services at the same place. It does not have to be the traditionalpost office - a center that is able to offer postal services. People areable to come and buy stamps and they leave their letters there for posting.A public telephone, an internet - a cyber café, a community radio stationcould be added. All this can be done under one roof.

CI: The last time that we spoke with you there were some issues with theDTR projects actually networking themselves together to communicate betweenthe projects in the different countries. Have you found a way to solvethat?

JS: No – not country to country. They are connected within their owncountries and within the various NGOs.

CI: How are they doing that?

JS: Through the project - because they have timeslots which all of theclubs utilise. So the programme that comes out on air is a programme thatcovers this club – the other club and another club – all of this iscondensed into one programme. The women are able to listen to each othersconcerns as well as their own concerns. So within the countries, there isnetworking. If the local languages are different it also becomes verydifficult for people to access the information. For instance in a countrylike Nigeria, with many different local languages it would be very difficultfor people in one region to access the information from another region.

CI: Do any of the radio stations that you work with do any translations fortheir local communities?

JS: All of the programmes are done in local languages…

CI: I understood you to say that when some of the programmes come together,some of the languages are different…so…

JS: No no no. In Zimbabwe for instance, we have 2 main languages. And wehave 2 time slots. So one language has one time slot and the other has theother.

CI: Absolutely. So – is there one communication initiative which has mostdisappointed you?

JS: That is difficult. I am trying to think. I can't think of any at thispoint in time.

CI: Which communication initiative, other than your own, has most impressedyou, and why?

JS: Well, of course, I like your website and e-magazine The Drum Beat. I have seen it grow from the time Warren started - the “one-person band” - and the way it has since evolved. And I think it is exciting. A very good initiative. Theother initiative, of course, is Soul City. When you look at the dramaprogrammes that we want to produce, they are basically formatted in the sameway as Soul City. Of course I have to mention my own which is the most exciting initiative that is the Development Through Radio programme because it engages rural communities. And rural communities are producing programmes they want to produce. The project is basically completely owned by the rural communities and that is exciting. It is a very creative and innovative way of empowering communities. Because they are not just listening, they are producing, they are debating, they are prioritising issues, they are deliberating within the community to say what is what. And what other tool of communication could be so empowering to the majority of the people in developing countries? For them to sit down as a community and decide “no – this is not it,” “this is not what we want,” and then agreeing on what they want to do. This project never ceases to amaze me. It is very exciting. There are so many projects where we talk about community… community… community… but communities are divorced from what is actually happening. And this is one initiative that is grounded within thecommunities themselves. So for me, that in itself is very exciting. Givingcommunities the opportunities to talk – not dictating to communities, butcommunities telling you what they want and defining their own development.Development as they see it. The foundation of the project is in thecommunities. So when you come in, you are like a visitor coming into theprogramme. The knowledge, the information that comes out of this programmeis just amazing.

CI: Yes, it is. Thank you very much. We appreciate you sharing your viewswith us.