Objectives
Combining an understanding of genocide with a community-based approach to healing, Ervin Staub and Laurie Pearlman developed a method to be used in the aftermath of group violence. They have been implementing this method in Rwanda since 1999, primarily through seminars and workshops for the staff of local organizations working in the community, national and community leaders, and journalists. By moving their message to the radio waves, Radio Benevolencija shares their approach with the population at large.
Radio Benevolencija's Great Lakes Project is an extension of the Rwanda Reconciliation Radio Project, which placed Staub and Pearlman's method in a mass-communication context. The campaign aims to prevent group violence and genocide, implementing Staub and Pearlman's periodic seminars in Rwanda and expounding upon them. The project seeks to support and facilitate trauma and societal healing processes, to prevent future trauma and violence, to foster understanding of the roots of violence and put a stop to genocidal tendencies. The Great Lakes Project also works to support participation in justice processes and counteract hate media by training radio stations to handle information in an unbiased manner.
This pioneer campaign tailors its message to the needs of the audience at hand, be it listeners with limited educational background or the intelligentsia. A comprehensive series of radio and grassroots campaigns throughout the Great Lakes region employs "edutainment" techniques to provide people with psycho-education - this to prevent mass violence, address psychological trauma and foster reconciliation.
Communications strategies are implemented through two main activities: mass media communication, specifically radio broadcasting in the main national languages of the Great Lakes region (Kinyarwanda-Kirundi, Kiswahili and French), and participatory communication through a grassroots-level network of change agents and local organizations. These two activities are interdependent, with the grassroots activities reinforcing the radio program messages. For a precise list of the organization's Communication Objectives, please click here .
Radio Benevolencija's focus areas in the Great Lakes Region are Rwanda , Burundi , and the Democratic Republic of Congo.