On Go4it, Radio Four’s shortly to be axed Sunday-evening programme for children, we heard from children in Swaziland who have created their own radio station, Ses’khone Radio.
On Go4it, Radio Four’s shortly to be axed Sunday-evening programme for children, we heard from children in Swaziland who have created their own radio station, Ses’khone Radio. Their topic for the week was human rights, which for them meant having the opportunity ‘to speak our minds to adults’. Many of them are living as adults anyway, cooking for themselves and surviving independently because their parents and extended family have all been decimated by Aids (half the population of Swaziland is now under 21). It was a shock for the children back in London, in the Go4it studio, to hear their stories.
Radio has never been purely for entertainment, nor just a source of information. It gives people a voice, very often in circumstances where there is no other opportunity for them to have their opinions heard. And it allows those in very different circumstances to hear that voice in a very real, immediate way. That’s why it’s experiencing such a boom at the moment, in these topsy-turvy days when a pile of horse manure matters more than who’s bombing who in Afghanistan. The latest audience figures have revealed that more people than ever before are tuning in, 90.2 per cent of us (or 45.8 million), in search not of diversion but of an insight into alternative, but very real, lives.
Also on Go4it was a headmaster who had set up a radio station for the school. He explained how easy it is: all you need is a microphone, costing about £20, which can then be plugged into a computer, and you’re off.
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