REPORT IT, IT DESTROYS! AFRITAL 4 WEEKS RADIO ANTI-CORRUPTION SHOW REACHES 1000 YOUTHS.

[Ogaga E. Maxwell]

REPORT IT, IT DESTROYS!

AFRITAL 4 WEEKS RADIO ANTI-CORRUPTION SHOW REACHES 1000 YOUTHS.

During the last forum in Nairobi, Kenya the role of Media was stated clearly and its impact.

On returning I have been working strongly on a strategy to be able to reach more young people with the message of transparency and accountability.

I was able to raise funds from friends and kick start a Radio programme, we had earlier partnered with Babafemi Oyeridan during his WBI Project using our Radio front and it was quite effective, then we got an estimated reach of about 500 young people.

Last 4 weeks we developed a programme called REPORT IT, IT DESTROYS, the IT here referring to corruption activities, part of what we did was to spend a week talking about the disadvantages of corruption and its effect on the society, we used Crown FM 89.9 which is the topmost radio station in our community.

The program objectives was very simple to encourage secondary school kids and teens who are the greatest listeners of Radio to report corrupt practices in their schools, or in their daily work by sending sms to a dedicated number.

Through the radio statistics it was estimated that about 1000 young people listened to the programme through various call in, but we have 100 reported cases from schools, in the street experience, issues with policemen etc.

This has raises a critical mass of young people in our community that are ready to tackle corruption.

We just completed the prograame last week; we now have a permanent 15 mins Radio slot on the programme, we I talk on values, issues, ethics and transparency issues.

The reported case of corruption just makes us believe that if young people are encouraged they would want to fight corruption, we played the various Anti-corruption songs during the mid break of the programme on air two songs specifically the Brussels and Nairobi songs.

The follow up of this event is the organization of a Workshop, Seminar on building young people capacity to tackle corruption in their schools and daily experience. The programme would take place in June and we are inviting those who have sent in their reports of corruption via the database we have as they sent in their sms.

Ogaga E. Maxwell

African Initiative for Transparency, Accountability and Responsible Leadership

[Deogratias Munishi]

Great initiative Maxwell.