Tosalel'ango Reality Television Show

Tosalel'ango uses a reality television format featuring two new youth 'challengers' each week. These youth, who are usually under 30 years old and come from regions in Congo, contact Search for Common Ground by email or SMS (text message) describing their vision of what they want to change in their community. From the hundreds of messages received, the Tosalel'ango production team selects 2 candidates for every episode. The youth are selected based on the pertinence of their vision for change and their drive to make a difference. The show then presents them with 3 'challenges' that they have to confront on their mission to make a difference and films them as they tackle these challenges. The youth need to demonstrate determination, teamwork, advocacy, and innovation in order to make headway on difficult problems related to good governance, infrastructure and environment, and social issues, among other things.

The challenges often force the youth to become more informed about the problem, which in turn helps them understand how and with whom they can tackle it. In each episode, the 'challengers' may engage with local authorities and service providers. In many cases, the issue at hand requires improved collaboration between these stakeholders. In other cases, the 'challengers' undertake advocacy campaigns using petitions, sensitising the community or engaging different stakeholders in joint actions.

The programme is filmed on the streets, in schools, markets, offices, and meeting rooms of local authorities and officials around Kinshasa and other cities across the DRC. The show is hosted by the well-known rhythm and blues (R&B) singer Pasha Bay. The show is interspersed with 'Specials' that bring the 'challengers' in front of a studio audience of 200 youth, where they discuss the successes and difficulties encountered during their Tosalel'ango experience.

Search for Common Ground produced and broadcast 11 episodes of Tosalel'ango during its first season in 2008. During its second season in 2009, it produced 12 new episodes and 4 specials. The second season was broadcast on 5 Kinshasa-based television stations and 7 regional television stations, which are based in 6 of the largest cities in the DRC.

During the last quarter of 2009, the Tosalel'ango team began the pre-production stage of its third season. The series aims to begin airing 11 new episodes during July 2010 on at least 11 TV stations across the DRC. Due to the results of its latest media survey on people's exposure to the show throughout the DRC and in order to reach a larger audience, the Tosalel'ango team added some reforms to its broadcast strategy. For instance, they replaced some TV partners with new ones and decided to broadcast the same episode multiple times per week. Tosalel'ango's third season will also have several new features. For example, the show will air "pre-spots" at the start of each programme to brief the viewers on the content of the episode. There will also be short features at the end of each episode in order to link the theme of the episode with other general topics, such as decentralisation and good governance. Also, 'challengers' will be filmed in other cities than Kinshasa in an attempt to expose the program to a larger audience. In the third season, 5 of the 11 episodes will be produced in Kinshasa, and the remaining 6 will be produced in other provinces of the country.

Youth, Social Mobilisation, Governance

In March 2009, an audience survey conducted in Kinshasa showed that only 5% of people surveyed knew about Tosalel'ango. However, when the survey was re-conducted during the last quarter of 2009, results revealed that 1 out of 4 Kinshasa residents knew about Tosalel'ango, and 16% watched it regularly. In addition, 98% of the 163 young people surveyed said that the programme has had a positive impact on their lives. According to organisers, these figures are notable in an environment where few programmes have more than 10% of audience viewership.

In addition, SFCG's team reportedly regularly receives positive feedback from its audience. As one Tosalel'ango viewer stated: "This program is truly different from others. The information is true and honest. Tosalel'ango serves as a great source of inspiration for us. We now see potential solutions whereas before we only saw problems."

Tosalel'ango is part of a menu of 12 radio and 2 television programmes produced by Search for Common Ground in the DR Congo. The radio programmes are broadcast on a network of 97 radio stations around the country. In addition to Tosalel’ango, SFCG is finalising the production of a television drama on good governance called "The Team", which is set around a fictional female football team. The first of the 12 episodes is scheduled for broadcast in August 2010.