Talking Drum Studio - Sierra Leone

Radio programmes address the following groups and/or needs:

• Children: Golden Kids News brings together 16 children of mixed backgrounds to serve as reporters, producers, and actors. This show creates a forum for children to discuss their hopes and fears, advocate their issues, and discuss events related to the war.
• Women: for the programme Salone Uman, local human rights groups help identify issues that affect the status of women and that require exposure and reflection. The production team then interviews Sierra Leonean women.
• Excombatants: the soap opera Sangbai Drama, the drama Atunda Ayenda (Lost and Found), and the informational programme Troway Di Gun are designed to inform excombatants about the disarmament and demobilisation process and provide them with a forum to discuss their problems. Atunda Ayenda is also broadcast in Banjul, The Gambia for the benefit of Sierra Leonean refugees (but Gambian, Ghanaians, and Nigerians living in the city also tune in). In addition, the National Committee for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (NCDDR) produces a 15-minute news programme.
• Refugees: the soap opera Home Sweet Home intertwines information about issues that returnees and refugees face upon returning home. Luk wi Pipul provides news and information in a magazine-style format for Sierra Leonean refugees residing in Liberia and Guinea. Peace messages and Guinean and Sierra Leonean music are included.
• The issue of diversity: Common Ground Feature is a magazine-style news series that fosters connection through interviews with conflicting groups on a wide range of topics.
• The needs of particular neighbourboods: Wi Yone Salone provides information about current issues (economic activities, health, education, governance) related to the war insofar as they affect particular districts in Sierra Leone.
• The attitude toward police and the army: Wi Soja en Police Tiday is a 15-minute weekly special that seeks to raise the community profile of the Sierra Leone Army and the Sierra Leone Police, in part through interviews with these people and the communities where they live and work.

Additional projects include:

• Bo Peace Carnival - annual 4-day event to promote community-building and sustainable peace. Features performers and cultural groups, as well as plays developed and performed by secondary school students about early marriage, sexual and gender violence, education, and the generation gap. Commentary and discussion by chiefs, women's representatives, young people, and civil society members, interspersed with live interviews from carnival attendees, were broadcast to various parts of Sierra Leone.
• Community Radio Outreach - TDS-SL, through its Community Peacebuilding Unit, facilitates the development of community radio stations by organising meetings, bringing together broadcasters across the country to train each other, and coordinating work plans. Current projects include Radio Mankneh, Radio Gbafth, and Radio Tombo.
• Election 2002 Coverage - working with the Independent Radio Network (IRN), TDS-SL helped ensure that citizens would have access to polling results.
• HIV/AIDS prevention - on the "Best of Sierra Leone" album, one song about HIV/AIDS prevention features famous Sierra Leonean political leaders singing along with local musician Jimmy B. TDS-SL has used this song to launch an AIDS awareness campaign in Sierra Leone.

Conflict, Children, Women, HIV/AIDS.