The BBC World Service broadcasts a radio soap opera called 'New Home New Life' in the Pashto and Dari languages as an educational vehicle. The programme uses the paradigm of Afghan village life to address a wide range of issues. While the programme is not specifically or exclusively intended as a conflict resolution or conflict prevention project, issues related to conflict resolution frequently feature in the programme.
New Home, New Life (Naway Kor, Naway Zhwand/Khana-e Nau, Zindagi-e Nau) is a radio soap opera that was produced in Peshawar, Pakistan by the Afghan Education Projects of BBC World Service.1 The programme is broadcast by the BBC and re-broadcast by Radio Pakistan. Prior to the fall of the communist government, the BBC had broadcast news and current affairs programming in both Persian and Pashto, but determined that more in-depth educational programming was needed following the end of communist rule. "At the time," explains soap opera director Shirazuddin Siddiqi, "there was an expectation that the large number of refugees living in neighbouring countries would be able to go back to Afghanistan and would need help in rebuilding the country. Initial topics were mines awareness, health and veterinary issues."
The initiative took place at a time when what had been a fairly highly developed media environment was already in decline because of the years of one-party rule and the flight of many qualified professionals. The media environment deteriorated further under Taliban rule with nearly total suppression of any opposition media or criticism of the Taliban regime. In fact, radio was one of the only sources of information about the outside world.
In developing educational programming for Afghanistan, various formats which might appeal to mass audiences were tried, including the 'mini-drama' format. The idea was that the format offered a vehicle for teaching people how to cope with the problems of everyday life.
After evaluating the general educational needs of Afghanistan, a variety of themes were identified for both practical and informative purposes. "In order to be effective, such programming needed to be based locally, and programme makers needed to establish relationships with potential donors and to research audience needs," notes Siddiqi. "At the same time, the intelligentsia began to flee from the fighting in Kabul, many of them across the border to Pakistan." The choice for the project's location was influenced by both accessibility to the region in question and the availability of staff.
The BBC team in Peshawar soon began to develop educational feature programmes to complement the messages from the soap and reinforce issues raised in the story lines of the soap opera. In addition, publications were utilised as a third strand of the BBC's output. A cartoon magazine based on the soap opera was developed to provide listeners with interesting reading material suitable for people with low levels of literacy. A related initiative called REACH - Radio Education for Afghan Children - was launched in July 2001. The content of these programmes relates to the physical environment, understanding of other people's skills and lifestyles, understanding of Afghan culture and history, simple arithmetic and language skills.
Implementation
Preparations for New Home New Life began in 1993 when the BBC recruited an international
adviser and began training Afghan actors, scriptwriters, producers, administrators
and evaluators to produce a drama-series in the two main languages of the country
- Pashto and Dari (the form of Persian spoken in Afghanistan). Broadcasts began
in 1994 and continue to date. Over 100 actors are employed, some of whom were
celebrities on Radio Kabul before war broke out two decades ago. Some writers
of New Home New Life come from a media background but the vast majority have
been recruited and trained in Peshawar and had no previous experience of working
in radio.
Radio soap opera as a medium
The soap opera is a powerful way of putting across educational messages to millions
of people. It provides entertainment in a country where most forms of entertainment
were banned until recently. Listeners can identify with the characters and through
them, with the story lines. The same basic themes can be repeated in different
contexts without boring the audience. The soap opera, broadcast three times
a week, was originally modelled on the popular BBC Radio Four radio soap, The
Archers. Each 15-minutes episode follows the story of three fictional but typical
Afghan villages. Amongst its cast are some characters who have returned to Afghanistan
from the refugee camps. It aims to teach people how to survive in a society
where public infrastructure and normal processes of health, education and justice
have been destroyed by over two decades of civil war. The soap presents the
information they need so that the whole village community can participate in
development.
The issues addressed in the programme include not just conflict resolution, but also health, child care, community development, mine awareness, literacy promotion, gender issues, humanitarian issues, social issues, agriculture, drug addiction and alternatives to opium cultivation, and forestry conservation.
For the most part, the story lines only address conflict resolution obliquely. For example, in one episode, the current UN special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, plays himself in an episode dealing with the election of representatives to the Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly), the body which gathered in mid-2002 to choose a head of state, cabinet and a committee to draft a constitution. Several other episodes addressed the process of rebuilding governmental structures. But some plots are more directly linked to conflict resolution. For example, one of the characters quits the mujahedin and becomes a mine remover. When conflict resolution does come up, it most often is in the context of local issues and inter-personal conflict.
Afghans are reminded of traditional ways of organising their affairs through the village jirga, so that local disputes can be resolved without automatically reaching for a gun. A major recurrent theme is how to recognise landmines and how dangerous it is to dig them up for scrap metal.
In the cartoon magazine based on New Home, New Life, story lines from the soap opera are illustrated and summarised using simple captions in Pashto and Dari. This helps to provide entertaining reading material for teaching basic literacy skills to both adults and children. Since the end of 1997, high quality storybooks for Afghan children have also been published. They illustrate themes of peace, tolerance and co-operation, often drawing on traditional Afghan folklore.
Early challenges
Shirazuddin Siddiqi explains that when the programme started in 1994, listeners
were unfamiliar with the radio drama form and, although the idea of building
suspense into a tale did exist in Afghan storytelling, the soap opera convention
of jumping from scene to scene was unfamiliar. But once the listeners began
to recognise the various characters, they became faithful listeners.
Another of the challenges at the beginning was for the writers of the programme to adapt to language needs of a predominantly illiterate audience. In order for this to be overcome, researchers have worked with the writers in order for the diversity of the spoken languages to be reflected on the production. The introduction of the colloquial rather than the formal written language is a major innovation of New Home New Life. "People fully understand what we're saying," says Siddiqi, basing his judgement on letters from listeners. "That's why they actually adopt some of the practices we suggest. They tell us that the soap reflects their problems and issues, and it uses their language. That has actually made a big difference." Further, during its early stages, research revealed that the soap opera did not reflect the lives and needs of women, due to the language used and the time of the broadcasts. Thus, dialogue was introduced in the script which reflected women's realities and broadcast times were changed to times more suitable to their lifestyle.
Evaluation
The success of a soap opera such as New Home New Life, with an educational focus,
is dependent on close contact with the target audience, expert advice, and audience
feedback to ensure that the story lines used are topical and relevant. The scriptwriters
constantly adapt and re-orient the story line based on findings of a monitoring
and evaluation team which surveys audience reactions and needs. Reporters from
the BBC Afghan Education Projects (AEP) played a crucial role in on-going monitoring.
Teams frequently visited Afghanistan and the information was then incorporated
into the soap's story lines. The writers and producers strive to keep the programme
current and to develop stories that deal intelligently with Afghanistan's multiethnic
culture, tribal rivalries, and political sensitivities.
"The success of the soap opera owes much to the very sophisticated system of needs analysis which BBC AEP has developed, drawing on techniques of Participatory Rural Appraisal, including focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, key person interviews, health walks and spot checks." says Siddiqi. "This builds up a picture of commonly experienced problems in daily life. Personal experiences and stories from the focus groups can often become story lines for the drama, adding an air of authenticity. Needs analysis also reveals the kinds of misinformation and dangerous practices, which can be countered by educational messages developed with the help of technical experts from donor agencies."
The show has become immensely popular in Afghanistan and is almost certainly the most popular radio programme in the country. Anecdotal evidence from letters and interviews indicates that the messages are understood and that the soap opera has greatly influenced personal communication among ordinary people, provoking considerable discussion within villages. Further, a number of questions about community development in the AEP survey have shown that the soap opera is influencing thinking - and perhaps action - on community issues and health matters.
Ongoing challenges
One major challenge for New Home New Life was to determine how to proceed with
the scriptwriting after the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
The new war in Afghanistan left many staff wondering if the messages of the
programme were still relevant and the director's first reaction was to call
the BBC in London and recommend that the project close. But, according to a
BBC reporter, "people seeking a respite from the bad news have made New Home,
New Life the country's most popular radio programme... the events of the past
few weeks have transformed the role of New Home, New Life, as the radio show
is clearly treading a political tightrope amidst the US bombing and the humanitarian
crisis."
Siddiqi explains that the programme has covered the impact of the events and the incidents of attacks on the lives of ordinary Afghans, refugees, and internally displaced persons.
Additional ongoing challenges facing the show's producers including constant concerns about funding and staffing, the difficulty of finding ways to connect themes to the everyday lives of listeners, and the challenges of operating in a sensitive political and economic environment in collaboration with a range of international and non-governmental agencies.
Shirazuddin Siddiqi believes that the experience that has been gained over the past eight years augers well for the sustainability of the project. In particular, prospects for sustainability are greatly enhanced because the programme is produced by Afghans. "We are fully confident," he says "that the project will live for as long as it can continue to be relevant to its audience."
Resources
www.bbc.com
www.oneworld.org
www.tvradioworld.com
www.state.gov
www.ijnet.org
www.ijnet.org/Archive/2000/6/29-7163.html
www.unesco.org/education/emergency/casestudy/afghanistan.shtml
www.iwpr.net/index.pl?intcrisis_afghanmedia_MAI_afghanradioassess.html
www.rnw.nl/realradio/features/html/afghanistan000103.html
www.msnbc.com/news/647607.asp?cp1=1#BODYMSNBC
www.iwpr.net/index.pl?afghan_afghanmedia.html
Note
1 More recently, BBC AEP has been relocated to Kabul.