Freda A Pigru

Voices of youth from Crossing Borders and Ghana Community Radio Network youth advocacy project

At the age of 23 Freda is one of the youngest, if not the youngest community radio station manager in the whole of Ghana. Besides Freda's young age, comes the fact that she is a female in a male-dominated environment and profession.

Losing her mum at a young age, Freda was raised single-handedly by her father in the district of Nandom, in the Upper West region. She later moved to Kumasi to pursue a media and journalism education. Now she has moved back to Nandom, from where Radio FREED is transmitting.
 
"As a relatively young girl, it's quite a challenge, but also big chance for me" says Freda smilingly. Nandom district is a large area on the border to Burkina Faso.

As the local languages are Dagari and Sisali, Radio FREED is transmitting in both these languages as well as in English and French. With the French, the radio also serves listeners on the Burkinabe side of the border. 
 
FREED started out as an NGO with the aim to provide local communities in the Nandom district with health and education services. Originally the NGO supplied local library facilities in the communities.

Later on the libraries were converted to production of radio lessons, e.g. English lessons. As the radio was not able to follow up in all areas, memberships dropped. Recently however, the idea of establishing a truly community based radio (CR) has been revived.
 
Besides her position as station manager, Freda also functions as a journalist and program producer. Through the Crossing Borders project she has received training with GCRN. "Managing a radio station is something big, but I decided to take it as a learning opportunity", Freda says.

She underlines that being the youngest at the CR and being female, does not make her task easier, but she is learning while doing and declares that she is dedicated to keep up the hard work.
 
Reflecting on Radio FREED achievements, Freda points out how Radio FREED has been used as a conflict resolution tool by bringing together the parties of local land disputes. The radio has been there to promote the NYPAD initiative – Nandom Youth Peace and Development project.

As a consequence political parties and other interest groups have started to perceive Radio FREED as a constructive, non-partial actor that can mobilise the local population.
 
There is a growing understanding that if you approach the CR, it must be for the collective good, not to take control.  According to Freda the community is coming more and more forward, bringing suggestions for programmes and gradually taking on ownership of the radio station.

Examples are when news are being announced or when words are pronounced wrongly in the local languages and community members come forward to comment or correct.
 
In this way Radio FREED has become a source of local education. Programs cover a number of topics, from child well-being and personal hygiene including latrine and sanitation advice for households, to diet and how to make meals based on indigenous food. FREED collaborates with an agricultural station to make programs on farming practices, e.g. post-harvesting.
 
After visits to demonstration farms the journalists subsequently go back and broadcast about their observations and activities.  Local farmers like this a lot. When it comes to stimulating local income generation they have make programs about small scale businesses, such as production of pancakes or beer.

The have revived the previous gender programs through linking up with the queen mothers and in this way advocate against domestic violence.

There is a genuine and growing interest in using the CR to promote local culture and as a means to keep and increase the use of local languages. Freda refers to community members' concern and fear that the local languages will disappear and hence the attempt to avoid a scenario where children no longer play, pray or sing in their mother tongues and parents speak only English to their kids.
 
When it comes to challenges, Freda can easily list different kinds: Technically Radio FREED is quite vulnerable as no major renovation or maintenance of technical equipment or transmitters has happened.

As an example Freda mentions that at the moment FREED is in the possession of a single laptop, the one given to them by the CB project, and if that computer breaks down, the entire radio station is at stake. The have 3 recorders where one of them as well as the only microphone is supplied from the CB project.  A consequence of the limited financial means is that out of the 11 staff, only 3 receive salaries.

Another example is the costly prepaid electricity meter. A solar system to supply the electricity would potentially save them a lot of cost.
 
Due to long distances between the local communities they serve, inputs to radio programs depend on the availability of fuel for motorbikes. Freda reveals that FREED is planning to make use of online tools, but that the cost of bringing experts from the south to train them locally is a hurdle. Currently they are looking for opportunities to convert some of their productions into podcasts and thereby be able to reach a larger audience.
 
Commercial interests, that want to make use of FREED as a platform, will have to pay for their airtime ads. There is anyway an ethical concern regarding what can be advertised, and products such as tobacco and alcohol and things that go against the tradition cannot be advertised. Freda underlines the need to educate, not to bring about bad role models.

She definitely believes that if the youth are given a chance to participate in community development, they will. "We should encourage the youth to raise their voices, participate in decision-making fora and take on responsibilities for community service. CR is a good example of how we can work our way from a disadvantaged to an improved position".

Text by Runa Midtvåge