Husband Now Accepts Wife to Participate in Discussions on Radio

One of the engagements Change Communications undertook as the implementing agency of a 2-year UNDEF-funded project, “Developing Democratic Culture in Rural Communities Using Radio in Cameroon” was to train female community radio broadcasters and get radio stations produce programs on women-connected issues.This need to be gender-sensitive in radio training, programs and programming components of the project was more than elsewhere relevant in the conservative, predominantly Muslim northern regions of Cameroon where over 80% of the female population cannot read and write and cannot even speak nor understand French.

Photo: CC June 2013, Some of the women trained in Maroua, Far North in June 2013. Their programs have started “emancipating” both men and women listeners even though some men are still resisting change.

After about 14 months of broadcast of radio programs on women in the lingua franca of the area, we went to some localities – Meiganga, Moroua, Mora, and Kousserie – to find out how the women were reacting to the programs.
Interestingly, many more women listen to radio in the Far North Region now for several reasons. Ramatu, a mother of 4 speaking in Fulfulde says: “We understand the programs on radio quite well now. The speakers (journalists) speak in our language (Fulfulde). Also, our daughters who work there (trainees of the project) talk about problems that touch us the women. It was not like that at first.  Another serious problem we have now is this bad people (Boko Haram) coming from Nigeria. They can attack us at any time. You know they like to take away our girl children. It’s good   our soldiers from Yaoundé have come to drive them way and kill them. But, we still have to listen to radio all the time to know what’s happening”.

Amateur Photo: Even when busy with household chores, Ramatu and her children listen to the radio.

On her participation in interactive programs on women’s issues, she disclosed that, “at first my husband could not allow me to even listen to some of the programs. He said the journalists of our radio station were speaking like crazy people; they were encouraging women to be stubborn to their husbands”. Ramatu discloses that with time, “he has started to change. He says that some of the discussions are useful. When other women started calling by telephone and asking questions, he said to himself, ‘let people also hear my own wife talking on radio’. He then asked me to call and also talk on radio”. However, Ramatu complains that, it is expensive calling to participate on radio programs using the mobile phone. “We don’t have money to buy credits”, she says. She observes all the same that, “some husbands still refuse their wives from calling to talk on radio. Some of those women told me that, they hate that kind of behavior from their husbands. They will also like to talk as we are doing”.

Amateur Photo: Radio FM Meskine, Ramatu says, her husband has changed and now wants her to be calling frequently on interactive radio programs to discuss issues of public interest. But, her problem is that, calling on radio by phone is expensive.