Radio Active is an information dissemination multimedia radio program designed to provoke debate among individuals and groups in a Society. An audio approach to deriving, presenting and simmering ideas in the minds of listeners; both young and old alike. A means of gathering a society’s diverse views and ideas. The dissemination of relevant information to society to effect positive social change. Radio Active is a maximum 5 minute audio program that is made available online through Social media platforms and/or any device on which a multimedia file may be uploaded
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Bulawayo
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Bulawayo has a population of around 650 000. Most of my work is in the townships (ghettoes); where I grew up and where I live. The founding ethnic group of this city are the Ndebele yet today, many various ethnic groups live here. Various groups of Shona decent (Rozvi, Manyika, etc) and many others; the Sotho, xhosa, Khalanga, Nyanja, etc. My work seeks to involve as diverse a gathering so to include various perspectives and voices. This being very pertinent because our biggest problem isn’t one another but our politics as a nation, our justice system, corruption, the systems neglect of human rights, our economy etc. So this program will occur in 3 townships. These townships are namely Tshabalala, Makokoba and Ntumbane.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Tswarelo Mothobi
https://www.facebook.com/tswarelo.mothobe
https://www.facebook.com/AScribeCalledTswa
https://soundcloud.com/tswarelo-mothobe/radio-active-pilot
Duduzile Sibanda
https://www.facebook.com/duduzile.sibanda.75?ref=tn_tnmn
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nobuntu/384122828362521
Clive Chigubu
https://www.facebook.com/clive.chigubu?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clive-Chigubu/436863706357850
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Radio Active’s main functions are to disseminate information where it is not available. Gather people’s perspectives and opinions on communal level, national level and international level. The making of these perspectives and opinions a part of a bigger discussion through the audio program and/or a website on which everyone can listen to. This is to encourage peoples involvement in process that determine their lives, e.g. during the drafting of the Zimbabwean Constitution, many young people were not interested leaving the task to politicians (who are way older) and may not necessarily cover the views, needs, beliefs of younger people. This then program was made to capture the views of young people at the same time emphasizing the importance of taking part in national processes.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
To begin with, I live in one such community that i plan to implement this program in. I have grown up in these communities and this city. I have held various programs before that involve the community from mentorship workshops and classes, to hosting programs like poetry slams, music concerts, and comedy performances to undertaking my trial runs of Radio Active in these communities. I have mainly worked with youth in these communities from facilitating a School of Hip Hop where i worked with school leavers who did not manage to make it to college on how to better themselves and their communities through their cultures. Today i continue to work with many of these youths, some of whom have grown to be notable Comedians, Poets or musicians in the country.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
I intend to work with 10-15 youths in each township there by training a maximum of 45 people in this 1st run of the program. Each of these 10-15 youths, will record people in his surrounding, i.e family, friends, relatives, and edit their work to upload on our website and then share these and various other voices from different townships with them on their social media platforms. Each of these youths will also begin to encourage the people in their circle to also record their stories, happening or perspectives to be submitted. Through these youths and the website we will also begin to include more youths that will require this training in an interest to implement this in their neighborhood..
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
I am a Writer, Music Producer and Sound Engineer. I am the founder of Initiative Arts, a network of artists who use their skills and talents for activism. I also work with various notable social activist platform, i.e Kalabash, for which i am a contributor of audio, text and video.
Duduzile sibanda is multimedia person, a musician and contributor (writer) to Kalabash. She is a firm believer and voice of woman’s issues and the need for equity and equality in all societies.
Clive Chigubu is a comedian, a workshop facilitator and mentor for children. He hosts motivational workshops with children as young as 8 year old to as old as 25.
We will produce audio podcasts to share on various social media sites and on a website
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Each of the townships (Tshabalala, Makokoba, Entumbane) have functional youth centers whose space we can use. These youth centers are equipped with electric power. We will need to bring along computers and mobile ADSL. The choice of these particular townships is also for their central location and easy accessibility for some other youth in other townships. E.g Hosting a workshop in Tshabalala, we can invite youths from other townships like Sizinda, Nkulumane & Nketa. The same goes for the two other townships. the youth center provide a classroom type space with chairs and tables in which we can host out trainings and meetings. we may even continue to work from this space since we would have paid a years subscription.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
I have lived and worked in all 3 townships and I currently live and work in one of them. While living in each of them i have been part of a movement to transform these communities toward positive social change. While working here, my realization is the number of young people, who if given the slightest of opportunities, have the ability to transform themselves and their societies for the better. I conceptualized the idea of Radio Active and my only set back has been funds to then impart knowledge about it to other people. With the proper resource and funds, its concept can be passed on to other people who can also pass it on to other people as well. the long term hope being to make these communities centers from which Radio Active may continue to run.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
If this project is selected as one of the Rising Voices Grantees, there should not be any challenges because the young people are available and willing, the youth centres from which we will work are available, my relationship with these communities is ongoing because of my other work in them in this and other various fields. So there aren’t any foreseeable challenges.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Because the idea is to also design and put up a website for people to then interact on, from different parts of society and the world, the project’s impact will obvious. My initial measurement will be the very youths I work with in the beginning phase (the training) and their ability to then bring in stories, opinions, and perspectives in. Then secondly is the public’s response on social media and the website. Then thirdly is the public’s will to contribute to, discuss and/or submit their own issues and perspectives. The numbers will be seen growing on the site and social media platforms.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
The general time line will be in setting up the website and social media pages, the acquiring of equipment and training of the youths. From there on, it will be a permanent structure that will evolve on its own, e.g. introduce a blog, video category, etc. In a maximum of two months, this program should be fully running with contributions coming in.
Phase 1: Acquiring Computers(Laptops) and Digital voice Recorders and getting the Website design underway and opening necessary social media groups and pages. The 1st week of June, 2014
Phase 2: training the Youth in using the equipment, writing these podcast and uploading on to the site. 2nd & 3rd Week of June, 2014
Phase 3: beginning to implement trainings and uploading recording on our sites. inviting people onto our social media sites and website. Noting the overall progress until the end of July at which point we will need to analyze the process and determine success or implement contingency's.
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Website Design & Hosting :$ 500.00 (Website & Hosting for a year)
2 x Computers (Laptops) :$ 600.00
5 x Digital Voice Recorders :$ 800.00
Operating Expenses x 3 People :$ 250.00(Includes Transport & Meals)
Administration & Training Stationery :$ 200.00
Youth Center Subscriptions per year :$ 75.00 (this is for 3 youth centers at $25 each)
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
Raising Voices can network us with other similar projects and movements in different parts of the world. This way it becomes a learning process for us the trainers as well as it shows us how other people are succeeding. this also exposes us to more people that have an interest in the type of our project. Informing us as well of seminars, festivals where people and organizations in our kind of work gather in an attempt to build social media and digital technology activism. Connecting us with other funders so the project can survive and sustain itself beyond this initial grant and if this project is selected, Raising Voices can act as a referee for us.
Contact name
Tswarelo Mothobe
Organization
n/a
