Plan Guinea Radio Campaign

Plan Guinea’s radio campaign, promoting the rights of the child, started in 1999 and is the only production that records in six local languages (Maninka, Kissi, Pular, Kpélé, Toma, and Susu) and in French. Thus, a greater number of listeners are able to participate in the project.

The project is run in two phases and involved 312 children from various schools and districts of Conakry. The participating children worked with professional comic actors of the National Theatre of Guinea and were awarded a certificate of merit and a small radio after the recording of each phase.

Phase I of the radio campaign was broadcast from December 2001 to December 2002 on eight rural and community radios: Kissidougou and Zérékoré in Plan Guinea intervention regions, and Boké, Kindia, Mamou, Labé, Kankan, Faranah in other regions in Guinea.

Weekly and quarterly competitions are organised during the radio broadcasts. Through the quarterly competitions, children have the chance to win a bicycle, television, sewing machines, big radio-cassettes recorders or walkmans. During the weekly competitions, tee shirts, caps, cassettes and calendars with messages on rights of child are offered to winners.

A total of 86 'children’s listening clubs' were set up: 30 at school level and 56 in communities within Plan Guinea intervention areas. Each club is composed of 14 children (girls and boys), and supervised and assisted by a teacher at the selected school. The objective is to allow children to be involved and participate in the project through listening to the shows. Children give their feedback through drawings, poems and letters. Plan Guinea has assisted each club with radios and supplies to follow the broadcasts. 

During phase I, all radio stations received an estimated of 30,000 letters, poems and drawings.

Phase II of the radio campaign is still on-going on the eight rural and community radio stations and the national radio of Guinea. The rural and community radios will finish broadcasting on 20 October 2004 and the national radio will come to an end on 12 January 2005.

Plan Guinea has supported parallel activities to strengthen the project:

• Theatres on rights of child implemented at rural levels
• Two stories of the radio campaign made using video and projected in the communities
• Training of radio presenters before the project started for each phase
• Edition of 10,000 comic books on the radio campaign distributed in schools, to children participating in radio programs and the children who recorded the comic sketches.
• Organisation of competitions during the broadcast with distribution of gifts