Kick-starting the first community-based radio station for people with albinism – REF FM UKEWERE

Project description

This is a project of the REF FM Foundation (The Netherlands), carried out in collaboration with the Africa Afva Initiative (AAI), a Tanzanian NGO franchised by REF FM. The central idea of the project is to give a specific media voice to the community of people living with albinism on the Tanzanian island of UKEREWE (530 km2), inside Lake Victoria, with a population of around 300,000.

People living with albinism are still dehumanised and discriminated against in Tanzania. The island of Ukerewe is said to have numerous such people (around 100) who, in order to defend themselves, are organised under the umbrella of the Tanzania Albino Society (TAS Ukerewe).

The latter institution is a partner of the REF FM Ukerewe project. However, the contents will be for the general audience of the island: “The radio station aims to serve all the communities on Ukerewe Island and at the same time give the extremely discriminated against and occasionally hunted PWAs a voice and a sense of community, and to encourage the acceptance of PWAs. The radio station hopes to foster harmony between the communities and to give a platform to PWAs to inspire others.”

The total investment to launch the radio station is 133,640 Euros. SVA contributes to the project with an initial grant of 21,000 Euros to cover the costs (travel, salary, and recruitment) of a station manager who is expected to run the new radio project for the first six (or twelve) months, with the following objectives: to launch the radio station, hire and train staff, define a programme schedule according to REF FM’s specifications, and to ensure the economic sustainability of the project by selling advertising space before the end of his contract.