Women’s Listening Project

“There is an important change in the community; we have news from Somalia, and also from the rest of the world. We are also learning about what is affecting our community directly – such as gender violence and disease.” Fatima, 37 years old

There is no doubt that our listening project achieved its objective – in spades in fact. Our NGO partners mentioned that radios were playing 24/7, before I had even met with the women’s groups. The women were extremely pleased. Among all of things I discussed with the women, one of their comments stands out as the benchmark of success for this project. It is “We never had access to information before. Now we do.”



Until now, they never listened to the radio. They had no news from Somalia or the rest of the world. They had limited information on health and disease prevention. Rumours run rampant in the camps – about HIV transmission for example. One woman told me that she thought HIV and AIDS was a disease for young people – if you were over 49 years old and you weren’t at risk.

Now they listen to the radios 24 hours a day. Both BBC and Voice of America offer programming in Somali, and cover everything from news, to health, to important cultural issues such as female genital mutilation. Women who are illiterate now have access to information and education, and it is changing their lives and the life of their community. Their new-found knowledge is being put to use – our NGO partners tell us about lively discussions they see going on between men and women, where before there were none.

The one challenge a successful project brings with it? Having to deal with the request all week of “we want more”…!