Global Issues

When Information Saves Lives

Engaging Local Media in Humanitarian Crises

CASE STUDY: Post-Election Violence—Kenya

Dolphine Emali

"The night the violence started some of the listeners were calling in saying, ‘We are being burnt inside our house, please help us.’ You don’t know who it is, you don’t know where they are, you are in the station. All you can hear is screams and see fire . . . We lost many of our listeners. Now people just come to our office with death announcements for us to air." — Overnight announcer at community radio station Sayare FM in Eldoret on Kenya’s postelection violence in January 2008

THE NEED

In the wake of bitterly contested elections, violence erupted in Kenya in early 2008. Ethnic groups battled in the streets and thousands of people were terrorized and turned out of their homes. Some vernacular radio stations broadcast hate speech in thinly veiled metaphors. A year later, many Kenyans were still displaced, impoverished and traumatized.

THE RESPONSE

Within days of the outbreak of violence, Internews convened a meeting of Kenyan journalists desperate to discuss the media’s role in inciting the bloodshed. Later Internews worked with staff in the small radio stations in the conflict-torn Rift Valley, helping them report sensitively on the volatile situation. Working with an Internews trainer on humanitarian reporting, the Kalenjin-language radio station KASS FM invited Peter Kariuki (in photo, above left) as a guest for a three-hour call-in show. Peter is a member of the Kikuyu tribe who was forced to flee during the ethnic violence. The program put a human face on “the other” and Peter’s story moved many callers to tears.

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