Radio Jamana’s program Kodon Yiriba, runner-up for the 2024 Liz Hughes Award for Her Farm Radio, plays a crucial role in addressing gender equality and social issues in Mali’s Koutiala region. This 60-minute weekly program, co-hosted by Ibrahim Dembele and Maïmouna Ouattara, raises awareness on the consequences of sexual harassment and rape, particularly its impact on adolescents and young adults. The program empowers listeners to report incidents to local authorities, fostering a safer environment for youth.
The target audience for Kodon Yiriba includes a wide demographic: parents, adolescents, community members, local authorities, and traditional leaders. By engaging such a diverse audience, the program builds a community-wide awareness of sexual rights, healthy relationships, and the importance of gender equality. The show collaborates with local leaders to engage communities, as well as trained religious figures and NGOs that provide expertise, to emphasize the role and rights of women.
The program includes a 10-minute segment dedicated solely to women’s perspectives, called “Her Voice,” to actively include female voices. This segment, as well as Farm Radio International’s Uliza feedback tool, allows women and girls to share experiences and ask questions. One story that had a notable impact involved a teenage girl discussing her experience of harassment and pregnancy, which resonated widely, raising awareness in her rural community. Another listener shared her husband’s newfound willingness to undergo fertility testing after years of marriage, a shift inspired by the program’s openness on family issues.
The team faces challenges, particularly in finding guests willing to discuss sensitive topics. Women experts sometimes feel uneasy talking about sensitive topics like harassment on air. To help with this, the team works with supportive state organizations and local leaders who give advice on these topics and help plan questions to make the guests more comfortable. This way, the program can have open discussions while making sure guests feel at ease sharing their views. Despite these difficulties, Kodon Yiriba has contributed significantly to breaking cultural taboos, making sexual education more accessible within families. Parents are now more inclined to discuss these once-taboo issues with their children, reflecting a shift towards greater openness and understanding in the community.
Looking ahead, Kodon Yiriba aims to address enduring practices such as early and forced marriages. Harmful traditions like forced marriage persist, and the team is committed to addressing these issues in the future by placing a stronger emphasis on them. Kodon Yiriba plays a vital role in promoting gender equality in the Koutiala region by creating a safe, supportive space to discuss women’s rights.
Farm Radio International (FRI) is a Canadian non-profit organization specializing in ICT-enabled extension and communication for reaching rural and remote communities at scale in local languages in sub-Saharan Africa. FRI’s core expertise is collaborative, user-focused co-creation of quality information and advisory services, combining radio and mobile phones, other ICTs and face-to-face interaction