Internews Brings Radio to Three Million People in Afghanistan

    Photo: group of Afghan men listening to radios
Dominic Medley
   
Eighty percent illiteracy, chronic poverty and electricity shortages make radio Afghanistan's only truly mass medium.

Since Radio Bamian launched in August, shopkeepers in the central Afghanistan town say the price of radio sets has gone up in the bazaar.

“Of course we could hear radio before, but there was no radio that was ours,” said Houriya Shafiq, a doctor and part-time announcer at the new station. “That really makes a difference to people here. This is the biggest single sign that things are changing since the Taliban blew up our statues,” she added.

Radio Bamian is one of 14 nongovernmental stations that Internews, with funding from USAID, is building with Afghan partners. On Bamian’s main street, radios are tuned to the region’s first ever local station, which broadcasts local news, weather, music and poetry. Two other stations are already on the air as well—Radio Killid in Kabul and Radio Sharq in Jalalabad—covering an area with three million people.

Photo: guards standing on roof and around station
Christian Quick
   
Armed guards stand patrol during the opening of a new radio station in Logar province, Afghanistan.
    

Eighty percent illiteracy, chronic poverty and electricity shortages make radio Afghanistan’s only possible mass medium. Even so, only an estimated 38% of people in Afghanistan live within areas where they can hear regional Afghan radio.

Internews identifies local partners, helps them through the licensing process, trains their teams in basic radio production and journalism techniques as well as management and revenue generation, and installs a transmitter and studio.

Together with other organizations, the Internews office in Kabul produces an hour of programming daily which it distributes on CD to augment local programming. The children’s program “Shahrak Atfal” (“Kid’s City”) has been a particular hit. Other programs focus on human rights and law, features reporting, and Afghan storytelling.

Over the next year, Internews-aided stations will also broadcast programs covering the new constitution and the long process of gearing up for the country’s first genuine elections.