Making Waves: MOUTSE COMMUNITY RADIO
Stories of Participatory Communication
for Social Change
TITLE: Moutse Community Radio Station (MCRS)
COUNTRY: South Africa
MAIN FOCUS: Women empowerment, community Development
PLACE: Moutse Mpumalanga Province
BENEFICIARIES: Rural women
PARTNERS: Rural Women's Movement (RWM), National Community Radio Forum
FUNDING: Open Society Foundation of South Africa, Community Assistance Foundation (The Netherlands), AusAID
MEDIA: Radio
The women went to the presiding chiefs to seek approval for the radio venture. The chiefs said that it was a good idea to have a station but, despite the women's success at organising around issues of great importance to the quality of community life, the chiefs discouraged them, stating that if women were at the front of the radio project, it would fall down.
Two factors seemed to be at play. Firstly, in the chiefs' views it was seen as unsuitable for women to be engaging with technology unlike water and electricity radio did not appear to have a direct relationship to the home. Secondly the chiefs were tiring of the women in the area being so well acknowledged for their successful campaigns and felt it was time for men to re-assert their leadership role in the impending new dispensation of South Africa.
After considering the practical implications the women returned to the chiefs and announced their determination to proceed with the project. Later, although some time had passed since the chiefs' comments, the women expressed the opinion that if men were at the front of the project everyone would fall in the beer!
After three years of hard work the Rural Women's Movements' dream of starting a radio station in Moutse came true. The station was switched on at 6 a.m. on November 8th, 1997. Hundreds of people turned out for the opening. The women wore traditional clothes and proudly displayed the names of their villages in ornate beadwork hung around their necks. Villagers arrived in 'sets,' milling about in a scene of rainbow coloured cloth surrounding the station building. Drums were beaten, songs were sung and speeches were made. The bones were thrown in the studio to diagnose and ensure its health.
Traditional and contemporary life were blended in a way which expressed the uniqueness of the Moutse community. Everyone had a turn on the microphone and then Ma Lydia Komape, MP for the area and founder of the Rural Women's Movement, the Mayor of Moutse Conrad Tjiane and Chief Piet Mathebe jointly cut the ribbon declaring Moutse Community Radio a local resource.
Written by Tracey Naughton,an independent consultant working with MOUTSE COMMUNITY RADIO.
Moutse Community Radio Station was founded by members of the Rural Women's Movement (RWM), a national organisation in South Africa, which lobbies around issuesof concern to rural women. In the words of one movement member, Lahliwe Nkoana, "Moutse Community Radio Station (MCRS) was born of many years of our community struggle. During those years, the rural, mostly female community campaigned for rights to water, education, health care, electricity, democracy and an end topolygamy which discriminated against rural wives".
Powered by a 250-watt transmitter, its signal has the potential to reach 1.2 million people, well beyond the population of Moutse. Organisations from around the world have supported the development of the station. A national group, the Open Society Foundation of South Africa, however, funded its modest studio. The studio contains the bare necessities: a CD player, tape recorder, mini disc recorder, microphones and a mixing desk. The station is housed in an old building belonging to the Department of Agriculture, a more stable location than the room owned by the ANC (African National Congress) where members had been squatting.
The station operates with a board of trustees who set the overall vision and perspective, five management staff members who coordinate the training, administration, technical and programming departments, and twelve volunteer staff members who work as radio announcers. Moutse Community Radio is a member of the National Community Radio Forum, the national organising body in South Africa.
Various working committees contacted donors, obtained funds for equipment and sifted their way through the quagmire of impediments to mounting such a project in rural conditions. Initially, 45 women were trained in how to create and produce radio programmes.
Hardliners criticised the women for appointing a man as station manager, though the women supported the decision by saying that they also wanted men to be involved. For many years Sam Mashoeshoe, an honorary woman, was a member of the Rural Women's Movement. He was present at the 1993 annual meeting when the decision was made to create a community radio station at one of its strongest branches, Moutse. He was subsequently appointed as manager of MCRS.
Many people external to the station saw the project through a feminist lens and over time the women of Moutse came to understand that they were being labeled in a way they did not really understand in the context of their village life. They saw their achievements over the years as a logical extension of their roles as mothers and wives redoubled by the mitigating circumstances bought about by the absence of men who were forced to reside in the cities in order to work.
The on-air programmes cater to a wide range of listeners. The health programme regularly features medical practitioners for community phone-ins where they discuss an answer questions while the agriculture programme invites departmental representatives. The daily morning and afternoon drive programmes are entertaining yet informative and often include interviews on a broad spectrum of community issues. The station also catered to children, sports fans, jazz lovers, cultural music enthusiasts, cooks and dramatists. The community announcements of local events and the reading of funeral notices keep people living over a large area informed. Local, national and international news is read in a number of languages.
Cultural exchange remains an important goal: We hope it will be heard by the white town nearby so that those people can hear our stories, our songs and our problems.
With a population of nearly 900,000 people, Moutse, which is in the Province of Mpumalanga, was a politically active area during the apartheid regime, fighting hard against being incorporated into the Kwandebele homeland one of the areas set up to enable the "separate development" policies of the regime.
For generations, several chiefs of the tribal authority have been presiding over these areas. The 48 villages in Moutse are spread over a large area and the transportation systems are poor and expensive. Lack of an adequate communications infrastructure has contributed to numerous conflicts.
During the years of struggle, the rural, mostly female community members campaigned for rights to water, education, health care, electricity, democracy and an end to polygamy.
Another legacy of apartheid is the existence of numerous migrant workers, men who were forced to live and work away from home in order to support their families, leaving the rural areas neglected as a consequence. A community radio project is seen as a tangible attempt to improve the situation.
Community activists were appointed as representatives during the 1995 local government elections, which radically changed the faces of the people governing the area. Community radio has been supported as an integral part of accomplishing the task of bringing together the villages. Ma Lydia Komape, says, "One project that has the potential to bring people together, inform and enable participation for the local citizens is the Moutse Community Radio Station".
The determination of the women who started the station was recalled during a group discussion: "When we started the station, as a group of women we knew how to organise; we did not know anything about radio, but we knew we could learn".
In terms of ownership, this is an example of community media. The radio station belongs to the Moutse community, men and women. However, at the time of station's license application hearing the station was operated primarily by women and one man. Therefore, the Independent Broadcasting Authority gave the radio station an opportunity to be a women's only group. Their station could apply for a license as "a community of interest" rather than a "geographical community".
Both definitions of community are permitted in South Africa's Broadcasting Act. The women saw that by being inclusive they had a better chance of guaranteeing the future of their community-based station; they opted to be defined as a geographical community.
Until 1994, there was strict state control of the media in South Africa. Media was used to re-enforce the divides of apartheid and functioned as a propaganda tool, effectively keeping the masses ill-informed at best and uninformed at worst.
For the first time in Moutse, a radio station made pertinent information available to a community where vast distances and lack of a transportation infrastructure make it extremely difficult to bring people together. Radio is able to disseminate information about health including primary health care and information about HIV, TB, scabies and the importance of clean water and sanitation. The radio can be used to encourage parents to send their children to school and to engage people in local governance issues at a local, provincial and national level.
The MCRS is completely operated by volunteers including the board of directors, management, presenters (broadcasters)and administration support. A recent recruitment drive to incorporate new community members within the station was advertised over the airwaves and attracted a positively overwhelming 180 people, all for volunteer positions. Only 32 were retained for further training and evaluation.
The MCRS has a comprehensive Community Participation Manual detailing ways in which the community can interact with the station. Participation ranges from speaking as guests on programmes to attending the Community Consultative Forum, where both producers and listeners review schedules and content. Internally within the station both the weekly general meeting, which is compulsory for all station volunteers, and the management and heads of department meeting, enable all the volunteers to be informed about station issues and to be involved in important decisions.
MCRS has faced many growing problems and new obstacles in recent times. Technical problems such as the lack of electricity and telephone, as well as problems obtaining a license to operate legally delayed for three long years the launching of the station.
The state electricity supplier simply did not see the community radio station as a priority and delayed the installation of a cable up the Mapula Mountain for 18 months. The work was completed just in time for the switch-on date. Likewise, the station had to wait several months for a telephone landline.
Despite having a large sum of money to deposit, the local bank refused to open an account for the station until Tracey Naughton, the mlungu (white)consultant, suggested to the manager that the bank had policies that appeared to be racist.
The Independent Broadcast Authority was slow in granting radio licenses; the station had a credibility crisis while waiting for its authorisation. The community has recently faced the IBA again, this time requesting a four-year license.
During 1998/99, internal tensions grew as the few remaining women lost their grip on the project. According to Tracey Naughton, "the reality of MCRS today is quite different from the one envisaged by the women who started it and by the donors who funded it. The women made a deliberate choice to be a community resource for all and not a woman-only station. A project that had a well-defined starting point has experienced a gradual slippage from a clear development orientation of the project to a male-dominated culture of entertainment-focused, ego-boosting broadcasting".
As with many stations in South Africa the dynamic hits it's lowest ebb and then re-builds. This process, in which the Rural Women's Movement is paramount is now underway in Moutse.
E-mail exchanges and papers by Tracey Naughton, consultant working with MCRS since 1992, and additional information by Nikki Marcel, director of MCRS.
"The Local Village Speaks Up: Rural Women in South Africa Start Community Radio Station" by Tracey Naughton, InteRadio, AMARC, Volume 9, Number 2, 1997.
Moutse Community Radio Station, Overview & Proposal Document for Donors December 1999. CAF (The Netherlands), written and compiled by T. Naughton.
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