Using Technology to Tackle Teen Pregnancies

By Jon Hargreaves

 HCR partner station Amani FM in eastern Kenya’s Tana River, has launched a major campaign to tackle underage pregnancy.  According to Station Manager, Harriet Atyang, “Tana River County is among the four worst hit counties with this menace and is one of the major reasons it performs so poorly in the national exams.”

 Over the next three months Amani FM will be promoting awareness of underage pregnancy through discussion programmes, road shows, street theatre and visiting schools across the region.  In addition to this, the station is teaming up with Una Hakika to use technology to protect vulnerable children.  Using Una Hakika’s SMS text reporting system, listeners will be given a short code, which they will be able to use free-of-charge, to report any incidents where they feel threatened or at risk.

“Every text will be followed up and in the case of a rescue being required, we will involve the police,” says Harriet.  “I have spoken to the OCS of the area and he is ready to offer us all the support we need.”

HCR set up Amani FM in partnership with the Sentinel Project to promote peace and social development ahead of the elections in 2017 and an evaluation last year showed it had had a significant impact on promoting dialogue between different ethnic groups.

For more information contact hcruk@h-c-r.org

Harriet Atyang and Esther Dalano interview a community member during an Amani FM Road Show

Stories Promote Peace in Eastern Kenya

By Jon Hargreaves

“I never realised how the Orma people came to be in this region of Kenya,” said a retired teacher from Tana River, “but since I started hearing their stories on the radio, I have begun to understand them better.”

The man, from a rival community, was responding to a series of cultural programmes he had heard on a new station set up by HCR and its partners, Amani (Peace) FM, in this conflict-affected region of eastern Kenya.  The programmes are made by Mole Hashako Yako, a community activist, teacher and social historian.  The Orma people of Tana River don’t have a written history, so Mole has been talking to elderly people in her community who have a rich knowledge about the past, and then telling their stories on the radio.

“Telling stories about our past, not only helps young people in the Orma community understand their roots and identity, but it also helps promote empathy and understanding between the communities,” she said.  “Once you hear someone else’s story, you humanise them and begin to understand them.”  Although there has been conflict particularly between the pastoralist Orma and agriculturalist Pokomo communities in recent years, Mole points to the past and to a time when the two communities lived side-by-side in peace and harmony.  She believes the past will help the communities connect with the future, where Tana River can be peaceful and prosperous.

Mole Hashako Yako: Telling stories promotes empathy and understanding between communities.

Amani FM was established in August ahead of Kenya’s controversial elections in an effort to promote peace and build on and complement the work of Una Hakika which has been combatting rumours and misinformation since 2013.

John Green, the Director of Una Hakika, who is also chairman of the board of Amani FM, says that without a shadow of a doubt, Amani FM has contributed to peace at a time when there were many rumours circulating, which could have resulted in violence.  During focus groups conducted this week, among different communities, John says people appreciated how well Amani FM had advocated for peace and that how integrating the work of Una Hakika and the radio has produced a powerful model of using technology and relationships to foster peace and development.

Call for peacebuilding radio station ahead of Kenya's election

By Jon Hargreaves

With just over four months until Kenya goes to the polls amidst concerns that there will be election-related violence, HCR is exploring the feasibility of a new radio station in eastern Kenya's Tana Delta.   

Last year we partnered with the Sentinel Project to set up a peace centre in the town of Garsen. In this interview, John Green from Una Hakika describes how rumours and misinformation are often a key driver in the conflict between different groups and how a radio station could help build peace in the region. 

Since the nineteenth century, eastern Kenya's Tana River County has often been the scene of violent conflict, largely between two ethnic groups, the dominant Orma, who are nomadic cattle-herders and the Pokomo, who are farmers.   Many of the disputes have been over land use and access to water, however the intensity of these conflicts has increased in recent decades.  This has been fuelled by the easy access of weapons flooding across the nearby border with Somalia, growing poverty, the pressure caused by poorly managed resources and political interference.  Add to that toxic mix, the extremist group Al Shebab, which is trying to destabilise Kenya and Tana River County, is at risk of descending into violent conflict.

In June 2015, HCR, helped a Hola-based community organisation, Kenya Sustainable Health Aid to establish Tana FM which is now on the air supporting the peacebuilding process in the region in the run-up to August's critical election.

Peace centre for Kenya's troubled Tana River

HCR and Canadian-based Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention, are about to set up a "Peace Centre" in the conflicted east Kenyan region of Tana Delta.   The centre will be established in the town of Garsen and will serve as a hub to analyse misinformation and rumours, as well as disseminate reliable information and messages that promote peace through HCR partner station Tana FM.  Kenya’s eastern Tana River County has frequently been affected by violent conflict between different ethnic groups, with rumours and misinformation among the key drivers of the conflict. 

In April, HCR specialists joined Tana FM producers in training a team of citizen journalists from Sentinel's Una Hakika project in how to create radio programme content that builds peace.  Una Hakika project coordinator John Green praised the new venture saying:  “People make decisions based on information, so when they receive information that is verified and from a neutral source that has no ethnic bias, it is a milestone in the peace process”

A new team of Una Hakika citizen journalists with coleagues from Tana FM and HCR UK in Garsen

Sentinel's Executive Director, Christopher Tuckwood said that when the Una Hakika information service was set up two years ago, his team were deeply impacted by the interethnic massacres in late 2012 and early 2013 and how rumours had contributed to the atmosphere of fear, distrust and hatred that fuelled the conflict.   

Una Hakika's expertise in gathering, verifying and countering the flow of misinformation will add a powerful dimension to Tana FM's broadcasts as together the teams seek to put an end to conflict in this often divided region.

HCR's Jon Hargreaves described the establishment of this new partnership as coming at a very strategic time, as Kenyan's prepare to go to the polls in August 2017.  "Elections in Kenya have often been associated with violence," said Jon, "and even this week we saw a bloody crackdown on protests in Nairobi, following demonstrations against the country's electoral commission. We want to do all we can to ensure that elections in Tana River County pass peacefully and that citizens of the county are fully aware of their rights and responsibilities."

Tana FM began test broadcasts from Hola, Capital of Tana River County in May 2015