Abou Yayoba, Dakar-based journalist
The Oxy-Jeunes community radio team.
An Oxy-Jeunes studio during a broadcast. The station's most popular programmes are phone-ins with local authority officials.
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[The media’s] selection and description of particular events–far more than their editorials–help to create or promote national issues, to shape the minds of the Congress and public, and to influence the President’s agenda and timing. Theodore
C. Sorensen, |
The different communities in Pikine soon realized how useful Oxy-Jeunes could be in getting through to politicians and bureaucrats, and also in communicating with each other
Young people in a poor
suburb of Dakar fought hard to get a radio frequency. Since their station started
broadcasting in June 1999, it has given many ordinary citizens a chance to speak
their mind
‘I wish I could listen to Oxy-Jeunes, Pikine’s community radio
station, while I’m at work but we can’t get it here in Dakar,” says Babacar, a young
garage mechanic who works in the Senegalese capital but lives out in the suburb of
Pikine. When you tell him there are plenty of radio stations in Dakar, all broadcasting
music and news, he replies with a laugh: “Yes, but they don’t say enough about the
place where I live.”
Pikine, an enormous suburban settlement with 1.15 million inhabitants, was officially
declared a town not long ago. Each day, thousands of people pour out of it to try
to make a living in the “informal sector” in Dakar. Poverty-stricken Pikine is where
migrants from the countryside end up, but it’s also known for the richness of its
community life and the energy of its young people.
When the people of Pikine set up Radio Oxy-Jeunes (“Jeunes” means young
people in French), they came up against the tough world of Senegal’s bureaucratic
jungle. They drafted a proposal with the help of Forum Jeunesse, a non-governmental
organization (NGO) which has several thousand members in Senegal and is backed by
the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters and a Canadian NGO, the Catholic
Organization for Development and Peace. For three years, they wrote letters galore,
hung about for hours at the ministry of communications and even resorted to scribbling
graffiti on the walls of Dakar.
Until recently, the authorities only issued FM broadcasting licences to foreign stations
such as Radio France International and Africa Number One and to Senegalese-owned
commercial stations. They made a lot of money because the stations were forced to
pay an annual fee of several thousand dollars. However, underresourced local community
stations had little chance of getting official approval. Until recently, there was
only one community radio station in Senegal.
But in June 1999, a young man from Pikine boldly cut his way through this thicket
of restrictions. When he shook President Abdou Diouf’s hand at the inauguration of
Dakar’s new stadium, he seized the opportunity to say: “Mr President, young people
are still waiting for their radio frequency so they can make themselves heard on
the airwaves!” This simple sentence did the trick.
The president responded at once by asking his prime minister to give the matter top
priority. The next day, the people at Forum Jeunesse received a summons, delivered
by a motor-cyclist, to go to the government’s main administration building, the citadel
of the bureaucracy. When they got there, they were told they could use the frequency
103.4. From then on they were on their own!
Today, the Oxy-Jeunes transmitter is a familiar sight to all the inhabitants
of Pikine. It stands on the roof of the Léopold Sédar Senghor Cultural
Centre, an imposing building that houses the municipal government and several community
groups. Physical proximity to the local authorities does not seem to worry the 50
or so volunteers from community organizations who run the station. The radio gives
the town authorities a hand by broadcasting official announcements of general interest,
but it carefully defends its independence. “Oxy-Jeunes is clearly not in the
authorities’ pocket,” says opposition MP Amadou Yoro Sy.
The station broadcasts 40 hours of programmes a week. Within six months it had established
itself as a forum of opinions focused on life in Pikine and the concerns of its inhabitants.
Its recipe is simple. The producers give the floor to listeners and allocate plenty
of air time to social and political discussion. The titles of the programmes are
revealing–“Mbedd mi” (the street), “Bla-Bla” (political satire) and “Fadiou Thiossane”
(traditional healing). The station’s aims are to give a platform to marginalized
people, strengthen grassroots and community organizations, get people involved in
development and raise civic awareness.
The different communities in Pikine soon realized how useful Oxy-Jeunes could
be in getting through to politicians and bureaucrats, and also in communicating with
each other. All Senegal’s languages can be heard on the station–French is only given
20 per cent of air time–and all the country’s ethnic groups have access to it. For
example, says Oxy-Jeunes coordinator Oumar Ndiaye Seck, “the nearly one million
Peulh-Fuutas people from Guinea who live in this country no longer have to send their
announcements to Radio Labé in Guinea because they have no outlet in Senegal.”
Oxy-Jeunes has knocked a few local politicians off their pedestals. When they
answer listeners’ questions, they come across as ordinary citizens, accountable to
the people who voted for them. In a country built around traditional hierarchical
relationships and political favouritism, this kind of awakening has not come easily.
The prefect of Pikine district, Cheikh Tidiane Ndoye, points out that “the most popular
programmes are those in which mayors and local officials are invited to speak directly
to the listeners.” The highly popular local news bulletin, which presents an hour
of news “about Pikine for Pikine”, is an opportunity for grassroots Pikine to bring
its struggles for survival to the attention of officialdom.
Pikine’s citizens, especially the younger ones, make no bones about reminding officials
of broken election promises and demanding explanations. They also use the station
to get decision-makers to promise to provide basic social services. They realize
that asking for a public drinking fountain in a poor area by cleverly using colloquial
language is much more effective in a society with an oral tradition than sending
letters that supposedly get lost in the mayor’s office.
Publicity about Oxy-Jeunes’ achievements is causing a few problems. “What
about us?” say other communities which have seen nothing come their way. This increases
the pressure on the station and on local officials, who often cannot deliver the
goods. And this pressure is increasing.
Scrambling
for funds
“There’s too much music
and not enough discussion on Oxy-Jeunes,” say members of the economic pressure
group Bok Xalat (“shared vision”), who also complain that few of the programmes are
presented by women.
Another big problem is the lack of trained presenters and the paucity of resources.
The management would like to have a core of paid professionals, but it has no money
to hire them. It is also waiting anxiously for the end of the station’s first year
to see if it will have to pay the $3,200 licence fee which is compulsory for community
radio stations but which it cannot afford.
The future is financially uncertain. The Canadian NGO backing the project has already
provided some $63,000 to buy equipment and provide basic training for several presenters.
The grassroots groups which ask for air time are usually so poor that it is unrealistic
to expect them to contribute. There is also fierce competition for aid from international
organizations such as UNICEF and from national bodies that subsidize some radio stations
on a one-off basis to support health campaigns and the like. More professional private
commercial stations with bigger audiences are also after this kind of funding.
After six months on the air, Oxy-Jeunes knows it cannot live off the three
awards it won at the Radio Festival (Festival des Ondes) in Bamako (Mali) in November
1999. Its sponsors and beneficiaries will need to use imagination if the station
is to survive. As it learned right at the start, when you’re poor it pays to be bold.
