Population Media Center aired a radio serial drama entitled Cesiri Tono (All the Rewards of Courage and Hard Work) from November 2004 to October 2005 in the West African countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire. Cesiri Tono was designed to address the practice of trafficking and exploitation of children, which the organisers identified as being pervasive throughout West Africa.

A post-broadcast survey was conducted in the three countries to determine what effect listening to the drama had on the audience’s knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour with regard to children’s rights, child trafficking and exploitation, and related health and social problems. A total of 6,642 women and men participated in the survey.

Cesiri Tono was produced in partnership with First Voice International, which distributed the programme via WorldSpace satellite to 169 community radio stations throughout the region. According to the organisers, 22% of respondents to the survey in Mali, 10% in Côte d’Ivoire, and 5% in Burkina Faso had listened to the drama. This equates to over 5.5 million listeners if these percentages are reflective of national trends.

The evaluation suggested that listeners in all three countries were more likely than non-listeners to have discussed children's rights with someone in the last 12 months. In Burkina Faso 50% of listeners had discussed children's rights, as opposed to 33.8% of non-listeners. In Côte d’Ivoire, 43.6% of listeners versus 24.9% of non-listeners, and in Mali 31% of listeners versus 20% of non-listeners also reported such discussions.

According to the evaluation, listeners in Mali were over 5 times as likely as non-listeners to have heard of exploitative child labour, and listeners in Côte d'Ivoire were over 3 times as likely as non-listeners to have heard of these problems after controlling for level of education, sex, urban/rural residence, and age of respondents. Listeners in Mali were more than 2 and a half times as likely to have heard of child trafficking than non-listeners, after controlling for level of education, sex, urban/rural residence, and age of respondents. Listeners in all 3 countries were more aware of child trafficking than non-listeners, and more listeners were able to cite at least one factor leading to exploitative child labour in all 3 countries. The evaluation also pointed to increased knowledge of risk factors for trafficking and exploitation. More listeners than non-listeners were able to cite at least one factor leading to exploitative child labour. In Côte d’Ivoire 58.5% recognised that there is a relationship between high fertility/large families and the problem of exploitative child labour, as opposed to 43.5% of non-listeners. In Burkina Faso, 99.9% of listeners were able to cite at least one factor leading to child trafficking, compared to 81.5% of non-listeners. In Mali, 86.4% of listeners were able to cite at least one factor leading to child trafficking, compared to 67.4% of non-listeners. In Côte d’Ivoire , 80.7% of listeners were able to cite at least one factor versus 58% of non-listeners.

Listeners to Cesiri Tono were less likely than non-listeners to prioritise educating boys over girls. Malian listeners were less likely than non-listeners to support early marriage for females. 58% of non-listeners said that ideal age of marriage for females is less than 18 years, while only to 40% of listeners identified less than 18 year as the ideal age of marriage for females.

In Burkina Faso, more than twice as many listeners as non-listeners reported having taken action against exploitative child labour. In Burkina Faso, 23% of listeners had taken action against trafficking versus 7% of non-listeners. In Mali, 10% of listeners had taken action against trafficking compared to 4% of non-listeners.