The drama is widely popular, at least as popular as the news. The AED estimate that up to 80% of Afghan adults listen to ‘New Home New Life'. In 1997, 83.5% of families were found to either own or have access to a radio, the BBC was the station that was most listened to (80.5%) and drama was the family's favorite radio programme (64.5%). 63% of women listened to the drama regularly, but 37% revealed that they were unable to listen due to constraints by money (5%) loss of radio (5%), male kin (25%) or by mother-in-laws (2%).

Long term retention of knowledge was very good. In the first phase the increases were dramatic. For example, the number of men who knew that weaning should be introduced after 3-6 months increased from 38 to 72%. Another example is that the number of women who knew that a lactating mother should cover her mouth if she has TB and is feeding her child increased form 30% to 96% in the first phase, and two years later, 91% of the women still knew.

Mary Myers Summary of Afghan Education Drama (AED) “New Home New Life” 1998, and many sources, including: 1) Gordon Adam and John Butt, 2) Butt, J., 1997 “Radio for Meeting Learning Needs in Emergencies” Presentation to UNICEF Workshop, Cairo Oct./Nov. 1996, and others available upon request.