In February 2015, Internews established Nile FM, a community radio station in Malakal County, Upper Nile state. As part of Internews' Humanitarian Information Service (HIS) that brings information to displaced and vulnerable populations throughout the country, Nile FM responds to the information needs of the internally displaced people (IDPs) in the region.
Posted on Wednesday, September 2, 2015
The ongoing political crisis, which began in late 2013 has drastically altered the media landscape. Areas such as Malakal, which has seen heavy fighting and insecurity throughout the last year, have an acute need for relevant, timely, and accurate information.
As a community radio station, Nile FM is staffed by IDPs living in the area who receive training from Internews about how to collect accurate information and produce programs relevant to the local communities. Though radio is a dominant information source in South Sudan, Nile FM is currently one of the only radio stations operating in Upper Nile state.
Before Nile FM was launched, Internews had fostered another HIS mini-media program known as Boom Box Talk Talk (BBTT) within the UN Mission Protection of Civilians (PoC) site. This program delivers life-saving information to the IDP and host community living inside the Malakal PoC and in Wau Shilluk, a nearby village originally of around 3,000 people that spontaneously hosted an estimated 40,000 IDPs. Two waves of surveying were conducted exclusively within the Malakal PoC with the aim of informing the nature and content of the program and to assess people's need for, and access to, information in a context where radio and other communication channels are highly limited. After just a few months, it was clear that the information need expanded beyond the PoC, and Internews began creating the community radio station Nile FM to reach an audience not only of IDPs in the Malakal PoC, but also IDPs living in informal and spontaneous settlements all along the River Nile, as well as members of the host community in Malakal town and nearby villages.
This snapshot report highlights key findings from a separate baseline survey conducted exclusively outside of the PoC in areas in and around Malakal County, though some key findings from these previous waves have been included to further contextualize the more recent survey.4 While the two BBTT surveys investigate knowledge specific to the PoC site and various programs within it (see annex for highlights), the Nile FM baseline focuses on more general information needs and habits for those living outside the site. The baseline survey draws on a total of 656 observations collected in late January and early February 2015, just prior to the station’s launch.