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Why South Africa?

South African children live in challenging times. There is a vast gap between rich and poor, levels of violent crime are high, and one in ten young South Africans aged between 15-24 is HIV-positive. One in four young women is HIV-positive by her 21st birthday.

One million South African children live in homes where there are no literate adults. This poses a significant challenge for children to make the best use of learning and development opportunities.

Why Radio?

Radio is the most popular medium in South Africa. The majority of households have at least one working radio set in their home.

Radio is a powerful medium that can be used creatively to engage, inform, inspire, and educate young people. Radio is a source of information and a companion, even a friend. It connects us to each other and can broaden horizons and introduce young people to new ideas.

Projects in South Africa

Hospital Radio

In a partnership with the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital in Cape Town, the largest pediatric hospital on the African continent, and the University of Cape Town's Children's Institute and the School of Adolescent and Child Health, we will establish an in-house radio station.

Content will include a mix of audio diaries and reports produced by child in-patients as well as professionally produced stories, music and features. Each patient will receive a radio and/or MP3 player upon admission to the hospital so that they can receive the audio content on offer.

Ingwavuma Rural Children's Radio Partnership

Ingwavuma is a rural area in northeast KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Children grow up amidst extensive poverty, malaria risk, and a burgeoning HIV epidemic.

This prompted the creation of a partnership in 2005 between Zisize Educational Trust (a local community-based organisation), the Children's Institute at the University of Cape Town, and a local primary school, to document through audio, children's experiences of growing up in a time of AIDS in rural South Africa.

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Ingwavuma Rural Children's Radio Partnership

The Radio Workshop has joined this partnership to support a series of radio training workshops to enhance the children's ability to produce their own radio stories.

These audio features contribute to the unique and limited pool of child-produced content about life in rural South Africa and are broadcast on a local community radio station as well as online. The audio stories offer valuable insights into issues affecting children and serve as an important tool for child advocacy groups and those seeking to promote a culture of children's rights.

The Radio Workshop Daily Show

We have completed a pilot episode for a national daily radio show and are gearing up for regular broadcasts. The format of the show is a current affairs radio magazine targeting 9-14 year olds.

Content will be created by a radio production team, and by children taking part in school and hospital-based radio training workshops. The show will be made available across South Africa on radio as well as digital formats.

School Workshops

In the lead-up to a fully funded schools' program, we have been working with refugee children in Cape Town displaced by recent xenophobic violence. Over a three-month period we have taught children radio skills, enabling them to record their own stories.

The schools program will establish after-school radio clubs in primary schools in the Western Cape. Child facilitators will train young people to report about their own lives, communities, and concerns.

The school workshops will result in a local community broadcast as well as providing a source of child-produced audio content for the daily radio program.

Website

We have begun building a child friendly website www.radioworkshop.org and database from which all radio program material can be downloaded in MP3 format by individuals or community radio stations, free of charge.

Content will be generated by adult producers and children, and will include audio books, features, and news. The website will serve as a digital home for the daily radio show.