Washington File - March 30, 2004
Susan Ellis, Washington File Staff Writer

Using grants from the Office of Citizen Exchanges in the Department of State's Bureau of Educational Exchanges, stations in Sierra Leone and four other African countries -- the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Angola and Liberia -- have begun broadcasting radio soap operas about AIDS that carry life-and-death messages told in easy-to-listen-to homilies of everyday family and community.

The underlying messages of these radio dramas, which are also dealt with in more pointed public service messages, are: HIV is not the end of the world; you can and must learn to protect yourself and your family from contracting the AIDS virus; and, if you are already HIV-positive, you can do things to improve your condition and your community.

A typical program recounts the value and meaning of the life of a teacher, Mr. Suma, who has been diagnosed as HIV-positive.

In flashback, the audience hears Mr. Suma in despair -- his aunt and uncle have "walked away" and his daughter is his only family support. But he also has a good mentor who comes to try to cheer him up. The audience can hear Mr. Suma say: "It's better to die. What will they [the neighbors] be saying when they are passing by?"

The mentor replies, "My friend, they are not going to be saying anything," and he goes on to describe what would happen to the teacher's family if the teacher gives up: his mother would be left with no one to care for her, and his only daughter would be left helpless. "She's so beautiful. Fifty-year-old men would all try to chase her and she would contract the same virus!" Mr. Suma: "Oh, my God, this is all my fault."

The story moves to the present, where the audience hears the teacher, Mr. Suma, getting accolades for being willing to travel to a distant town to open a new school. The paramount chief praises Mr. Suma's courage and self-sacrifice for the good of the community, calling him "a real son of the soil. He has shown that he's ready to help his brothers and sisters. The community will be ready to help you live amongst them."

Mr. Suma responds, "I'm the happiest person in the world," and is called on to give a rousing talk, which he does, including offering his services to any elders at any hour of the night to teach them.

Shifting to the future, the story reveals how the new school has grown when the inspector of schools comes to visit Mr. Suma, who is now very sick. He tells a district officer that Suma is "one of the most polished and hard-working teachers" he has ever met and tells of a former student who is so proud of the man who helped him complete his course to become a new district officer.

The former student, Gebril, enters and shows Mr. Suma his school certificate, saying: "This is my appointment as the new district officer, and it's all because of you. Because of what you did for me." Gebril continues: "I want to hug you, but you are lying down. Please sit up straight." Suma: "Okay. Come and help me, my boy."

The issue here is the stigma attached to HIV and how some overcome it, says Moira Rankin of Soundprint Studio in Laurel, Maryland, which helps to produce some of the programs. In Africa, as in the rest of the world, "people don't want to touch people who are diagnosed with HIV. So we're trying to work some of those more subtle messages in ... to show what happens when someone is diagnosed with HIV," their exclusion from society and their emotional state. The drama, she says, has been revised and translated into indigenous languages and sent out for local broadcast.

An ironic measure of how far the message of the "talking drum" traveled is a complaint the station received from a real "Mr. Suma," a teacher from a distant village, who heard the program and called in to say he did not have HIV/AIDS. The staff explained that the name was not intended to refer to any living person and apologized to Mr. Suma for any inconvenience that may have resulted from the unintentional use of his name.

The radio series is just one segment of a program working in the five African countries and other parts of the world called Search for Common Ground. The non-governmental organization aims high: to transform conflicts of all sorts, reduce violence, shift attitudes and build peace.

Battling the scourge of HIV/AIDS, still wildly rampant in the area, is an integral part of that goal, explained Frances Fortune, regional director for Search, and Ambrose James, who heads Community Peace Building at the broadcast studio Talking Drum, both based in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The studio creates and broadcasts many of the soap operas, which tell the stories of fictional characters who have contracted the disease and how they face and overcome the barriers it raises for them.

Talking Drum also broadcasts public service announcements, typically using characters talking about AIDS testing, condoms and other topics, using music and other ear-pleasing extras. There is a dialogue between a man and a woman about not giving in to despair and remaining strong and productive for the good of families and the community, and a shorter public service announcement that asks the listeners if they are following the basic principles of prevention -- abstinence, faithfulness to one's partner, and the use of condoms -- "to help build a healthy nation."

Anna Maria de Freitas and Moira Rankin, two members of the Soundprint Studio staff, traveled to Africa to see their programs in action. All of the principals came to Washington in March to present the results to an audience at the State Department, whose Office of Citizen Exchanges has provided grants around the topic of HIV/AIDS awareness through radio broadcasting. Program Officer Carol Herrera explained, "The first project was done in Liberia, and it went so well, we decided to do a similar program in Sierra Leone."

One evidence of the programs' success is that when Talking Drum, with its studio's name lettered on the van, drives through the villages, people come running out, shouting "Talking Drum, Talking Drum!" The producers point out that this never happens in the United States when an ABC broadcasting network sound truck comes driving by.

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