Communication strategy
Audience reach and evaluation
Radio Benevolencija's communication strategy allows it to reach a majority audience as well as the elite in all countries in which it broadcasts. Grassroots activities supplement the broadcasts to embed message content further. Meanwhile, special focus broadcasts target particular parts of the population or problematic subject matter. All broadcasts undergo scientific evaluations that measure the reach and effected behavior change of the broadcasts and grassroots activities.
Radio drama
Target audience: majority audience with agricultural roots.
Radio serial dramas that entertain and educate have proven effective in affecting positive changes in people's knowledge, intentions and behaviors. Radio Benevolencija has developed Musekeweya ("New Dawn"), a series in which educational messages are developed to educate and entertain. By following the lives of various radio drama characters, listeners will understand how to prevent violence, start the process of reconciliation and lend a hand to their traumatized neighbors. Role models presented in the program follow an evolution of violence and counteract it by modes of prevention based on the work of renowned genocide scholar Ervin Staub. The overall goal of the radio drama series is to create a well-informed population that will understand the roots of group and ethnic violence, psychological trauma and the path to healing. This will help prevent further societal violence and bring about reconciliation.
Factual and debate programs
Target audience: educated audience, intelligentsia and the elite.
Factual radio programs are a more direct, interactive radio format. They create public space for open discussions of all the important issues relating to the themes developed in the drama series. Radio Benevolencija is currently airing Kuki ("Why?") in Rwanda and a weekly program broadcast live within Radio Okapi's slot "Okapi Action" in the DRC. Each installment outlines the different steps that lead to mass and group violence, using examples from the region as well as other civil wars and genocides as points of reference. These weekly radio programs counteract tendencies toward hate and conflict by focusing on the dangers of manipulation. They enable listeners to position themselves as active participants in the process of achieving peace and national reconciliation.
Grassroots activities
Target audience: majority audience and students.
Radio Benevolencija is also setting up participatory communication activities through a nationwide network of existing local organizations and community workers. These activities are aimed at reinforcing the information conveyed through the drama and factual radio programs.
Justice & youth campaigns
Target audience for justice: Gacaca attendees, traumatized individuals in all the countries, judges and attorneys.
Target audience for youth: Higher educated, French-speaking youth. More than 50% of the audience in the Great Lakes Region is under 18 years of age.
Special weekly programs in the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi support ongoing justice processes in all three countries. In Rwanda , a one-year campaign ran successfully in 2006, while in the DRC, the production of weekly factual magazines is ongoing; in Burundi , a weekly soap format has been developed for this purpose and will begin broadcasts in July 2007. In partnership with the NGO Search for Common Ground, a weekly French-language youth program called Génération Grands Lacs is broadcast throughout the region. This is one of the first programs to allow audiences from all sides of these contentious borders to discuss sensitive issues related to conflict resolution live on air. It is an opportunity for acknowledging each other's problems and getting to know one another better - an indispensable activity in peace building.
Evaluation
Each year, Radio Benevolencija conducts an academic review and impact evaluation of the above-mentioned strategies in its Annual Report. These evaluations are randomized evaluations representing the full spectrum of listeners and comparing their behavioral changes to monitored control groups. The team carrying out these researches is headed up by Elizabeth Levy Paluck of Yale University's Department of Psychology.