April 2008

Country Update

Locations where SFCG is currently working in, including Conakry, the Forest region (Kissidougou, Gueckedou, Macenta, Nzerekore) and the Fouta region (Koundara and Tougue). Click here to enlarge

Media Mapping: Examining Guinea’s Media Landscape
To better understand the current role of the media in facilitating communication between the government and the public, SFCG conducted a media sector mapping project in December. Using focus groups and stakeholder interviews in both urban and rural areas, including the Forest Region, SFCG gained a clearer picture of the current relationship between the population, the media, and government and how this relationship might be strengthened.

Key findings from the survey revealed general dissatisfaction among the public and media representatives with state-run media outlets, which are slow to respond to local stories and fail to address issues of relevance to the population. Media practitioners noted that old and outdated equipment and lack of materials are hampering the ability of the media to contribute to strengthening communication between the state and the people. Local officials from communes and prefectures complained about the lack of vertical communications between the central government and themselves on policy decisions made in Conakry and were unsure about the proper mechanism for communicating with the local population.

These findings will be finalised by validation meetings with key stakeholders such as the Ministry of Communication, radio station managers and other media practitioners to generate ideas of how to improve government-public communication.

Preparing Guinea’s Voters
Preparing Guinea’s Voters After several postponements, elections are now expected by most observers to take place in 2008. In preparation SFCG has been producing short radio spots, which have been broadcasting on local partner radio stations and the national radio service. Produced as part of a joint project with Catholic Relief Services, these short dramatic messages provide Guineans with information on four issue areas: good governance, democracy, human rights and elections.

SFCG has received very encouraging responses from listeners as well as from SFCG’s partners, such as the Director of the rural radio station of Sigiri (in Upper Guinea), who stated that the spots have boosted their listening audience. This is a change since previous research, conducted in Kissidougou, which had shown that people had little confidence in the radio stations and primarily tuned in for obituaries. The Sigiri Radio Director has talked about working with SFCG to produce talk shows in advance of the elections to generate public interest in them.

Youth Training in Nonviolence

SFCG’s trainer leads SFCG’s youth seminar on nonviolence, human rights and civic duties in Kindia.

The participants were excited to learn about issues related to human rights as embodied in both international protocols and national laws, including the Guinean Constitution, with which many of them were not familiar. The sessions then turned to an examination of alternative paths of advocacy for these rights, ones that do not entail violent confrontations and widespread destruction. Following the training, the youth participants organized and led their own trainings in their own communities to sensitize youths in their associations, with over 30 participants in each follow-on session. The youth leaders also agreed to organize a youth festival around the theme of nonviolence in April that will bring together all the youth associations that attended the training. At the heart of the festival will be a drama competition, where the different groups will compete to perform different short plays focused on human rights and civic responsibilities.

Engaging in the Forest Region
In the Forest Region of Guinea (Kissidougou, Gueckedou, Macenta, and N’Zérékoré), SFCG has been working with UNHCR to support the local integration of refugees from the sub-region who have chosen to remain in Guinea. Since 2001, SFCG has been supporting refugee related programming in the region contributing to our regional strategy. With the close of the repatriation process in June 2007, SFCG-Guinea readjusted the New Life New Hope radio programmes to focus on the steps and implications of the local integration process, targeting both Liberian refugees and host communities where they live. SFCG also has been working with a local theatre troupe to sensitise the communities around the process, preparing them to accept and live peacefully with former refugees from Liberia.

SFCG recognises radio stations as its key operational partners, and capacity building for these stations to improve the quality and coverage of their broadcasts to better reach the population in their area is a primary focus of SFCG’s work. Over the past five years, SFCG has supported the establishment and/or renovation of more than 14 radio stations in the sub-region, including five in Sierra Leone, five in Côte d’Ivoire, two in Liberia, and two in Guinea. In partnership with UNHCR, four partner radio stations in the Forest Region have benefited from increased technical capacity. SFCG has procured much needed radio equipment, including one 500 watt transmitter in N’Zérékoré to reactivate a site in Beyla that has been inoperative for 10 years, and another 300 watt transmitter installed in Gueckedou to extend coverage across that region. Thanks to these two new transmitters, the whole of the Forest Region now has broadcast coverage and most of the Liberian, Sierra Leonean and Ivoirian refugees in the area can now listen to radio programmes informing them on the local integration process.

Growing Popularity of SFCG Soap
The popularity of SFCG’s radio soap opera Wontanara continues to grow, as listeners are attracted by the honesty and realism of the programme in addressing every day issues in Guinea. Focusing on governance issues, Wontanara (Sousou for We are United) is centred around the lives and challenges of a group of characters who frequent a Conakry café, where they discuss the problems and successes in their lives. To ensure that the programme engages both rural and urban listeners, action also regularly takes place in N’Zérékoré. The soap opera uses entertaining story lines to tackle head on issues such as corruption in public institutions, transportation problems, high prices of goods in the market, police harassment, injustice, discrimination, and favoritism. The topics were chosen after a series of focus groups with civil society representatives in three areas of the country, where participants listed their most pressing concerns. Many of these subjects are rarely, if ever discussed on the radio, and the bold move to package them as entertainment has proven to be a hit with Guineans.

The show has not only attracted avid fans and listeners from the characters’ “hometown” areas; due to the spread of its reputation and listener demand, other radio stations in Labé, Kindia, Koundara, and Boké are asking to broadcast Wontanara. The show is heard on taxi radios all over Conakry as drivers and passengers alike tune in to find out the latest plot twists, and people have started shouting out "Wontanara!" when they see SFCG vehicles on the road. In line with how SFCG has developed in other countries in West Africa, the soap opera is partly designed to promote SFCG’s mission in the public’s mind and open up doors to new partnerships around the country.

Staff Spotlight: Mamadi Keita Laye
Mamadi Keita Laye has worked with SFCG since it began operations in Guinea three years ago. Born in Kissidougou, he spent time in Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia and Ghana during his youth and speaks five languages. Laye was attracted to a career in radio production because of its public service aspect, and he felt he could make a contribution to his country’s development. He became the second member of the Guinea team, which now has eight full time staff and several part time field agents. Laye says that over the past three years, the most striking change he has noticed is the liberalisation of the media in Guinea, which has allowed him to be involved in new, innovative radio work as the media space broadens.

Mamadi Laye at work during production of the SFCG radio drama, Wontanara.