*EPF108 10/18/2004
VOA's "Ejo Bite?" Radio Gives African Refugee Children a Voice
(Refugee camp youths do much of the reporting for unique radio program) (1360)

By Charles W. Corey
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Hundreds of thousands of refugee children and residents of Africa's Great Lakes Region -- Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania -- are learning that the world is still open to them to live better lives through "Ejo Bite?" Radio, a unique Voice of America program that helps refugee youth explore their future.

"Ejo Bite?" -- which literally means "How about the future?" -- broadcasts news, feature stories and radio dramas that are produced by young refugees in the camps in the Great Lakes Region in the local languages Kirundi and Kinyarwanda. The Voice of America (VOA) has taught the youngsters journalism techniques so they can conduct interviews and prepare weekly programs that have special interest for the youth of their region. The programs are assembled by VOA in Washington and then broadcast back to the region.

Michala de Comarmond, chief of the Central Africa Service of the Voice of America, and Marie-Claire Sissoko, the manager and producer of "Ejo Bite?," talked about the 3-year-old service in a recent interview with the Washington File.

Comarmond stressed that as the voice of the refugee youth in Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, "Ejo Bite?" covers topics of particular interest to youth across the Great Lakes Region. "Ejo Bite?," she told the Washington File, teaches, informs, advises and, most importantly, gives the children of the region hope.

"Youth reporters in the region do their interviews and send them in to Washington for the show. One 30-minute program is broadcast in three different time slots each week by a variety of methods -- AM, FM and shortwave. The children can listen to the program on more than 2,000 wind-up radios given to them free of charge.

"A very important part of this show is the drama series," she said. With Africa's strong oral traditions, "I believe storytelling is important. We have been lucky to find local writers and crew. The dramas are recorded in each country by the young kids. Every week we end up with somewhere between seven to 10 minutes of drama."

The subjects that are covered in the dramas are determined through back-and-forth deliberations between the field and Washington, she said. The drama scripts are written by professional writers in the region and portray a broad array of topics of interest to Africa's youth: HIV/AIDS, education, reconciliation, forgiveness, tolerance and democracy.

"You name it. We are open to ideas," she said. "If they [the instructional broadcasts] are presented in the form of dramas or soap operas, they really have an incredible effect because the children don't feel that we are preaching to them." Since the children, aged 12 to 20, are involved in the programming, they learn from it as well, she said.

Besides reaching the target youth audience, Comarmond said, "we also have a spillover audience, as evidenced by the letters that are coming in from the parents of the children ... that is, if there are parents, because a lot of these children are orphans."

The most compelling element of the programming at "Ejo Bite?," according to Marie-Claire Sissoko, the program's manager-producer, is the fact that the main actors in much of its programming are children. "Children, we know, are the future of the world and our countries -- especially in that region," she said.

Sissoko, a native of Burundi, said: "We have so many children who have seen so much unbelievable, horrible stuff. Our show gives them hope. We give them a voice. They express themselves in their own words and then they hope for the future. They see that people are willing to listen and to encourage them and to help them find solutions to their problems. So it is a very, very important show."

Asked if the program has special significance for her, Sissoko said: "It means a lot to me, obviously, because I am from there. I know how the children in my country have been suffering, so it means a lot, really, to be able to see that I can do something to help -- even if it is small."

Reinforcing that point, Comarmond said, "A lot of love goes into" the program. "Love is a special ingredient."

Additionally, Comarmond said, the program has won a Distinguished Journalism Award in humanitarian reporting.

Comarmond said the idea for "Ejo Bite?" came to her while she was thinking about her own children and grandchildren. "How do they behave? Whom do they trust," she asked herself.

"Of course, they trust parents and maybe to a certain degree grandparents ... but I realized that the most important players in children's lives are their peers and that they would confide in their peers, often telling stories to their friends that they would never tell their parents."

That is when, she said, she realized the importance of giving the voice of the program to the children. What reinforced that, she said, is the fact that "here in Washington, we are living in a different world. How can we really talk to the children in Africa from our plush offices in Washington? It would not sound correct. It would sound like preaching."

For that reason, "I thought that it would be very important that we take this approach. We knew we were taking risks," not knowing it the programming concept could be pulled off.

"We all know the tragic past of much of the region and the power of radio in that region -- the hate radios -- so it was a decision that was examined and re-examined" before being implemented.

Asked about the broadcast's impact, Sissoko said: "We have seen the impact" firsthand. "The children are starting to talk. Racial issues caused the war. Since the start of the program, we have used children from different ethnic backgrounds, which sets an example for the refugee children.

"Now they know they need to get together. They play together. They do everything together. What I would like to see for the future is to bring all the children together to erase all those racial differences and the discrimination that comes with it. That is my main wish."

Comarmond estimated the program's audience at hundreds of thousands, while acknowledging that it is very difficult to obtain an accurate estimate, and she said the programs are having a definite impact.

To illustrate her point, she gave a startling and graphic example.

In Rwanda, she said, prisoners are required to bring their children to the prison when they serve their sentences. "We received e-mails and letters about this issue ... pointing out the lack of nutrition and education at the prisons for children," she said. "The children were being ill-treated."

A youth reporter from "Ejo Bite?" was able to get permission to visit the prison and do a story on the conditions under which the children were living. "We broadcast that story. It took maybe a couple of weeks, but the immediate impact was evident. The prison received milk for the children and some attempts at educating them as well. The hygiene also improved," she said.

Comarmond said an adult would have never been granted access to the prison or obtained permission from the Rwandan government to do such a story. Because the story was done by a youth reporter, she said, the government felt less threatened and allowed the young reporter access.

"She took her microphone into the prison and asked the children questions that any child would ask another child: ����What did you eat today?' The story just developed around that and received an immediate reaction." Even though the evidence is anecdotal, the impact was very real, said Comarmond.

The "Ejo Bite?" project has received a grant from the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees and operates in partnership with the Freeplay Foundation for Lifeline [registered trademark] radios, which has provided wind-up radios to the youths in the camps.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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