Mbemba tells us how the recent agreement signed with a grassroots community radio will contribute to amplify efforts of raising awareness on climate change.
Our group-UJTD and the community radio of Koungheul signed on the 20th of October a partnership aiming at broadcasting largely information, knowledge, campaigns and initiatives tackling climate change.
This partnership will seek to educate grassroots communities on climate change in terms they can easily understand. For too long, information on climate change has been regarded as being highly scientific and reserved to experts and researches. At the same time, communities have been experiencing severe impacts due to climate crisis without knowing the causes and the potential solutions.
UJTD and community radio of Koungheul will be working collaboratively to provide a framework for enhancing active learning and sharing of innovative ways of addressing the climate change issue. We want to make sure that this issue makes sense in the context of our community’s daily lives, moving from the phase of passive awareness into active concern, greater wisdom and concrete actions on the ground.
The partnership is expected to build on the previous achievements of UJDT by continuing bringing knowledge and raising awareness but also enabling sharing of experiences and wisdom. Communities in that area have got so many to share and the radio represent the best platform. Despite the recent progress in technologies of information and communication, radio still the main and popular source of information used by the vast majority of Africans, including Senegalese.
Community radio of Koungheul was created in 2006 to provide the useful information to improve the livelihoods of communities. The radio has 10 reporters and 7 producers and was supported by a fund from the African Climate Change Adaptation Programme up to 2010. The area of Koungheul located in the central part of Senegal covers over 4000 square kilometers with a population estimated at 151,000.