Responding to Covid19
COVID19 has highlighted the vital role of communication for disseminating health and hygiene advice in a crisis, and for building cooperation across diverse populations. Although we have had to adapt working practices to observe physical distancing, community-centred media remains our primary tool in responding to Covid19. Recording media content in Omugo Community, Feb 2021 We have…
Read MoreBuilding Trust – Saving Lives
Soot Semee is helping refugee communities in Northern Uganda to protect children at risk. A large child protection NGO has been working with Soot Semee volunteers to help community members recognise abuse and know how to report it.
Read MoreStories that move mountains
Community-centred media helps people facing disadvantage or injustice to speak out and be heard by those in positions of power. Local stories are powerful, as HCR Pakistan’s partner, New Dawn, saw recently when responding to a scam that was hurting low income families. A few years ago in Pakistan, the government started to roll out…
Read More“…you’re still on mute!…”
Johnny Fisher “… you’re still on mute! …” If I could have a pound for every time I hear that phrase, I could probably fund our projects many times over! Love them or hate them, free Zoom webinars quickly established themselves in March this year as a means for organisations to contribute in the prevailing…
Read MoreClosing the physical distancing gap
Despite Covid-19, Amplifying Voices’ partner, Community Development Centre, Uganda (CDC) continues to bring communities together. CDC’s Soot Semee project uses community-centred podcasts to overcome physical distancing challenges caused by the pandemic. Physical distancing not only prevents people from seeing loved ones, it also exaggerates the separation between people from different community groups. Barnabas Samuel, from…
Read MoreSchool’s on air for summer
With Kenyan schools now unlikely to reopen until January 2021, radio has become an educational life-line for many families across the country. Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Amani FM, HCR’s partner station in Eastern Kenya, in collaboration with Zizi Afrique Foundation, has been delighting children and parents across Tana Delta, with a variety…
Read MoreWorld changers in a small town
In a world suffering from too many strong people using their strength to enforce their will on others, its really exciting to find this Pakistani youth group who are using their strengths to listen to their community. These young people from a church in the small city of Jauharabad said they had felt despair about…
Read MoreEmergent Agency
During the Covid19 crisis, one encouraging theme to arise is that of ‘Emergent Agency’. As many NGOs and official sources of assistance have had to withdraw or reduce services, or have even become barriers to assistance, people in disadvantaged communities have shown great resilience and entrepreneurship in developing their own ways to overcome the crisis.…
Read MoreChange made real through a neighbour’s voice
This is Refugee Week. In Northern Uganda, refugee voices are at forefront of the battle against the problems Covid-19 brings to their communities. We heard about some places where the only information comes through megaphones. After a while this can seem a list of do’s and don’ts and people in those communities say they feel…
Read MoreCovid19 – Nudging Nairobi’s youth
As the number Covid-19 cases begin to rise dramatically in Kenya, health authorities have been urging communities to stay at home, observe physical distancing and not to go back to work. However there is a major concern that many young people, particularly in Nairobi’s informal settlements, are not heeding the warning. To that end, Mtaani…
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