Voice 1
Hello, I’m Marina Santee.
Voice 2
And I’m Joshua Leo. Welcome to Spotlight. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
This is Urunana: a radio programme broadcast to the people of Rwanda, central Africa. Urunana is a soap opera – a series of programmes that tell stories about imaginary characters and events. Urunana is hugely popular in Rwanda. Millions of people listen to it each week! But why do people enjoy it so much? What is the secret of its success?
Voice 2
Well, the idea behind Urunana is not just to provide enjoyment to radio listeners. The aim is also to inform and educate listeners. Urunana discusses issues that are important to people’s lives and communities. Actors in the programme deal with ‘real life’ situations. Then, the listener can follow the characters’ progress as they deal with the problems before them.
Voice 1
One of the main characters is called Bushombe. He and his wife Kankwanzi live in the village of Nyarurembo. They are extremely poor. But Bushombe and Kankwanzi still manage to live a happy life together. One particular episode tells how Bushombe decides that he needs to go back to school – at the age of fifty! This one programme encouraged some older Urunana listeners. Many of them could not read or write. So they decided to follow Bushombe’s example and return to their local village school.
Voice 2
An aid group called Health Unlimited started the Urunana programme. It was first broadcast in 1999. At that time, Rwanda was still recovering from the effects of a terrible genocide – the planned killing of a whole race. The two main ethnic groups had a history of difficulty and unrest. But in 1994, it reached its worst point. An estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in just one hundred days. Most of the dead were from the Tutsi tribe. And most of those who did the killing were from the Hutu tribe. These events left Rwanda in a state of crisis. And many aid groups, like Health Unlimited, started some kind of development work in the country. They wanted to help communities return to living a peaceful, healthy life.
Voice 1
The team that produces the Urunana radio show often visits listeners around the country. They want people’s opinions about the programme. Their comments help the producers to write stories about issues that are most important to community life. Many of these issues are related to health. Others are concerned with social issues, like family planning. This can be a particularly important matter in country areas. There, jobs are few and men often have little money to support their families. But they still continue to have more and more children. In one village, a women’s group decided to act after listening to a particular Urunana programme. They took their husbands along with them to the local health centre. There, they discussed the use of family planning with medical workers. One woman explained this:
Voice 3
“I used to give birth almost every year. It has now been three years since I had a child. And I have decided not to have any more children.”
Voice 2
Urunana is an ‘edutainment’ programme. It combines education with entertainment – learning with fun activities. The first radio edutainment programme started in Colombia, South America. Jose Joachin Salcedo was a minister in the church. In 1947, Jose moved to the small mountain village of Sutatenza. He was a young priest then. When he got to the village, he found that there was very little for people to do – except drink lots of alcohol. Jose Salcedo decided that it was time to bring change to Sutatenza!
Voice 1
Jose enjoyed experimenting with radio equipment in his free time. Soon, he managed to set up a home–made transmitter to broadcast radio programmes. He then requested a broadcasting permit from the government. He also gave simple radios to the people in the village. And later that year, Radio Sutatenza began!
Voice 2
To begin with, Radio Sutatenza broadcast music and educational programmes. Most of the village people could not read or write. So Salcedo developed a system of school by radio. Groups of listeners met together in different houses. They heard programmes about health and how to eat a good diet. They learned about mathematics and farming. Slowly, their knowledge and health improved. This strengthened them as a community. And they began to value themselves more as human beings.
Voice 1
Radio Sutatenza grew to become the biggest ‘school without walls’ in South America! And many community stations around the world copied its edutainment broadcasting model. Now you can find edutainment programmes everywhere – on the radio, on the television and on the internet.
Voice 2
Back in Gisagara village, Rwanda, a group of people gather together to listen to this week’s Urunana programme. One of the listeners is an old woman. Earlier, she had written to the Urunana team with an idea. She wrote:
Voice 4
“I want to talk about violence against women in their homes. Women work, but often do not own property. Women are involved in growing, harvesting and preparing food. But men take control and decide who gets the food at home. Often the man provides very little for the women to cook. If the food supply finishes, then the man gets angry. He says that his wife has used the food badly. If possible, please could you include a story like this?”
Voice 2
Urunana’s purpose is to deal with issues like this. And by doing so, it provides communities with the chance to face their problems, and to overcome them. The programme’s name, Urunana, means ‘hand in hand’ in the local language, Kinyarwanda. And that is how edutainment is serving the people of Rwanda – working together with them to make life better.
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