The Helmand Radio drama has been a particular success, with the local scriptwriters working remotely in Helmand province receiving visits from Editor Rahmatullah Basharat, along with telephone support.

Much time and energy has been devoted to Mobile Mahaal – a system whereby news can be accessed through Afghanistan’s mobile phone network. It has proven to be a much harder task than anticipated, involving government agencies, mobile phone operators and cutting edge technology to keep the cost of the service low. However, once the technicalities are cracked, a system will be in place that can be replicated to provide much enhanced interactive communication for the 10 million plus mobile phone subscribers in Afghanistan.

Pakhto Voices is a partnership with PEPL – Popular Engagement Policy Lab Ltd — a small British company focusing on post-conflict research and communication. iMedia’s role is to oversee the production of four weekly Pakhto (Pashto) language radio programmes that will provide coverage of Pakhtun society in the border areas of Afghanistan that would not otherwise be available to local listeners.

These half-hour programmes will chart the massive shifts in Pakhtun society brought about by violent extremism and conflict in recent years. They will share solutions to common problems, and connect communities through a combination of radio programming, a monthly print magazine and SMS and voicemail feedback. This is very much an audience driven project that uses PEPL’s rolling research to allow Pakhto Voices’ journalists to follow up on issues that most concern people. The project’s initial stage runs until April 2012, with a planned two-year extension.

Nadene Ghouri is the lead consultant for iMedia in Pakhto Voices. She and Gordon Adam selected experienced radio and print media staff, who hit the ground running and prepared the first editions of the programmes within a month of being appointed. This is a Pakistani-led project, under the auspices of a new local company, Raabta Consultants.

The Nigeria Stability and Reconstruction Programme is a DFID-funded six-year programme led by the British Council. iMedia will provide the communications component. Ambitious in scale, it has a number of challenging objectives. Firstly, to reduce injuries and death caused by violent conflict in the North, the Middle Belt and the Niger Delta regions of Nigeria. Secondly, to increase civic engagement using new approaches to promote peaceful resolution of conflicts and violence against women, while at the same time strengthening women’s contribution in peace building. And thirdly, to improve conflict early warning systems and create swifter response capacity among state and non-state actors in Nigeria.

From November 2011, iMedia is spending the first year researching the most appropriate use of media to achieve these goals as part of the programme planning process. It is expected that the advances made by iMedia and its partners in interactive communication in Pakistan and Afghanistan will provide a fruitful source of ideas for this exciting new project.

• A Pashto language radio news feature service called “Mahaal” – up to five stories a day putting the news in context and providing informed comment on its importance, for rural radio stations in information-poor areas. Delivery of the news features through a mobile phone network will also be piloted
• Fifty works of world literature ranging from classics such as Oliver Twist and the Count of Monte Cristo, to Animal Farm and the Diaries of Anna Frank, to modern and classic works of Afghan and Persian literature – all abridged and adapted for radio serialisation and broadcast on at least 15 radio stations throughout Afghanistan. The broadcasts of each book will be followed by a radio phone-in programme to discuss the novel. The aim of the project is to broaden the cultural horizons of Afghans many of whom live very isolated lives with little to stimulate their minds
• Fifteen radio stations will be assisted in producing educational series of programmes for their audiences with grants and production assistance. The purpose of this project is to put radio stations in closer touch with the needs of their listeners, and to be responsive to audience feedback. Ultimately this will help the process of strengthening radio’s role as a champion of civil society in Afghanistan
• A radio soap opera focusing on the dilemmas facing young men in Helmand, caught between a life of under employment or joining the insurgency. The 104 x 15’ episodes will be broadcast over a year, and are being written by a team of Helmandi writers following a two week workshop in Kabul, where the storylines and key characters were sketched out
• The Straight Talk youth programme – a hour long combination of drama or feature led topical discussion with listeners – has been revitalised and will shortly be broadcast live on a radio station with a greater national reach, as well as by 20 local radio stations. Issues featured will be relevant to young people such as internet scams and SMS harassment
• Fifteen journalists in Helmand will be given basic training and job experience over a six month period, and the Helmand Journalism Association strengthened through improved internet connectivity and computer upgrades
• The radio based distance education to teachers programme “Its Great to Learn”, will come to an end after eight years in April. At present, MSPA staff are archiving over 3,100 programmes that have been broadcast in Dari and Pashto, so the Ministry of Education and all those interested in developing teacher education in Afghanistan can easily access radio programmes on different topics.

Funding for these projects comes from USAID, the American Embassy Public Affairs Department, and the British Embassy in Kabul.

iMedia Associates is playing a significant role in linking broadcasters with listeners in three new projects being implemented by Media Support Partnership Afghanistan (MSPA). The fast rising number of cellphone users in the country – at least eight million of them – has created new possibilities for listener participation and feedback. It also creates a possible new way of reaching people outside FM radio reach – by making specially adapted radio programmes available through the mobile phone network. This is an important part of current iMedia research in the country.

This will be an important feature of a radio drama focusing on the issues of conflict in Helmand province. Listeners will be able to respond to issues in the radio plays through SMS and radio phone-in programmes. This will keep discussion of the issues – which involve reintegration of former combatants – live, as well as provide valuable feedback for those scripting future programmes in the series.

For Straight Talk, MSPA’s flagship youth programme, a series of issues related to corruption, democratisation, narcotics use, psycho-social problems etc will be mixed with topics on entertainment, fashion and sport in the weekly one-hour programmes. Straight Talk is aimed at strengthening the voices of young people in Afghan society, and developing youth-friendly way of achieving this – through SMS-based competitions for instance – is part of the planning process that iMedia is helping with.

Feedback to news programmes is an entirely new concept in Afghanistan, but it is an important element of the Mahaal News Support Programme which will train young journalists to produce five news features a day to strengthen news coverage in Pashto. Again SMS responses will be invited, and they will be reflected in the programming of the participating radio stations. At the same time, the Mahaal features will be made available to participants through the mobile phone networks.

iMedia hopes to exploit the potential of mobile phone networks as a delivery system in two future projects under which the range of radio programming to Afghan mobile phone subscribers will be greatly increased. They will also be allowed to influence the course of action in a new radio comedy drama that will focus on rumours, a highly damaging aspect of societies in conflict. The final go-ahead on these two projects is awaited.

Our work in Barnsley has come to an end for now, following the successful outcome of the Portrait Barnsley event. More than 2,000 people took part on 24 September by submitting photographs of their friends, family, colleagues or neighbours, making it one of the largest simultaneous mass photography events ever. Read the details in the case study under the ‘What we do’ button.