In developing messages and programmes for the station, SAMWAKI and GTZ Santé hold discussions with community members and look at their perceptions, beliefs, and behaviours around an issue, for example, HIV/AIDS. Following up on the discussion, a message of prevention is created by the villagers themselves. According to the organisers, SAMWAKI then uses the information and messages gathered and developed during discussions to make sure the messages they broadcast are accurate, relevant, and reliable.

As part of their communication efforts, SAMWAKI and GTZ Santé support and develop listener’s clubs, who use solar powered radios supplied by Dimitra and the King Beaudouin Foundation to listen to the programmes. The clubs provide a platform for discussion of issues raised in the radio programmes, and according to the organisers, are giving villagers the space to talk about taboo subjects and challenge traditional norms.

Gender, Rights, Health

According to the organisers, since Radio Bubusa began broadcasting programmes around reproductive health, they have seen an increase in fathers accompanying their wives to ante-natal consultations, taking the HIV screening test, and understanding its importance for themselves and their families. Previously this was very uncommon.

Launched in 2002, SAMWAKI is a women’s organisation active in the rural areas of South Kivu. Its mission is to ensure that rural women are empowered by access to information, training, and communication in a country that has seen a great amount of generalised violence in the last years. In addition to the marginalisation resulting from extreme poverty, women in rural areas also face specific forms of violence, their developmental efforts are constantly undermined, and deep-rooted prejudices and general exclusion from decision-making prevails.


SAMWAKI is a founding member of the Network of Community Radios and Television of Congo and the Association of Community Radios of Congo.