Nelly Bassily | October 25, 2010
Our family of subscribers is growing! This week we welcome: Harouna Ouedraogo from IRD in Burkina Faso; Raissa Damba from Radio Rural Canal Fm in Congo Brazaville; Gachigi Mwangi from JewelFarm in Kenya; Brian Moonga, a journalist with Inter-Press Service in Zambia; Richard Katami Bwayo from the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation in Uganda; Okeyo Benards from Eco Ethics and Collins Ngetich from the Methodist University in Kenya; Zenzele Ndebele from Radio Dialogue in Zimbabwe; Victor Asumani from Nkhotakota Community Radio Station in Malawi and Moss Turner from ARG Design in South Africa.
We would also like to welcome 32 new subscribers from Ghana! They have all heard about Farm Radio Weekly while attending the National Food and Agricultural Show known as “FAGRO 2010,” that was held in Accra.
This week we are excited to bring you the first two Farm Radio Weekly stories from the upcoming script package on corruption in the water sector. Next week we will publish the last two stories. These stories, along with the script package, have been developed in close collaboration with the Water Integrity Network (WIN). WIN is a non-profit organization that promotes anti-corruption solutions in water, sanitation and water resources management worldwide.
The first story is from Burkina Faso. Drinking water is often expensive in urban areas and few households have access to running water. This story looks at the impact of a project aimed at improving access to drinking water for women in the southwestern town of Banfora.
The second story presents the work of an award-winning water users association in Kenya. The Mara River provides water for many users, often with competing interests. The water users association now issues permits for water use and helps to resolve potential conflicts, ensuring fair access to water for all.
Elsewhere in this week’s Farm Radio Weekly, we bring news that the first trials of genetically modified maize are scheduled to begin in Uganda and Kenya this year. Researchers have secured the necessary permits and are keen to begin planting the new drought-tolerant maize varieties in confined field trials.
Good news this week for community broadcasters in Nigeria: The President announced that the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) can now approve licences for community radio stations. We hope to welcome more Nigerian stations as Farm Radio International partners soon.
We’d like to remind all scriptwriters out there that the deadline for submission of scripts to our scriptwriting competition on healthy communities is November 1. And in other sections this week, you can read about some interesting training and awards opportunities.
Many greetings,
-The Farm Radio Weekly team