admin | January 6, 2020
Ouaboué Bakouan is a journalist who is very passionate about radio. His 13 years of experience, his hard work, and the quality of his agricultural productions have earned him a dozen awards at the national, continental, and international levels. Most of his productions feature farmers and focus on the challenges of the rural world: access of women to land, access of small producers to agricultural inputs, the contribution of the bio-digester to the household economy, and the ways that the Dagara people (an ethnic group in southwest Burkina Faso) are adapting to climate change.
Mr. Bakouan is editor-in-chief of Radio Manivelle, a community radio station located in Dano, in southwest Burkina Faso. This FRI partner radio station is implementing a project called “Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Nutrition of Adolescents in Burkina Faso” (abbreviated ADOSANTE), and Mr. Bakouan is the director of the production team.
He is also the correspondent for the privately-owned OMEGA radio station and the Burkina national broadcaster, both of which are based in Ouagadougou. As the editor-in-chief of a community radio station, he vowed to serve the rural world in every episode—from land clearing techniques to post-harvest activities, the time when producers suffer the most losses.
His story with Farm Radio International dates back to 2012. He first started taking advantage of the opportunities offered by FRI through Barza Wire, winning the 2017 ZIMEO Award in Addis Ababa in the “Food Agriculture Security” category. Then he took advantage of various resources for broadcasters that helped him improve the content and the quality of his productions. And in 2018, he was trained as a freelance writer by FRI as part of the ADOSANTE project and wrote a recently-published backgrounder on sexually transmitted diseases.
In recent times, he has been interested in how stone bunds contribute to improving women’s income, increasing agricultural production, and restoring degraded soils. With his skills, Mr. Bakouan supports his production team, which makes him a leader both within the station and in the community.
Ouaboué Bakouan was a runner-up for the 2019 George Atkins Communications Award. Read profiles of the winners and runners-up in the Spotlight section.