How An Indigenous Dialect Radio Station In Kenya Revives A Dying Minority Language - Minority Africa
Toluwani Omotesho
April 19, 2024
But first, in Gambia, lawmakers are currently deliberating on a bill to lift the ban on female genital mutilation (FGM).
FGM is a harmful traditional practice that involves the partial or total removal of the external part of the female genitals. Unfortunately, some communities and families still believe that this practice will help preserve a woman’s virginity for marriage.
According to the United Nations, more than 75% of women between 15 and 49 have undergone FGM in Gambia. It was eventually outlawed in 2015 under the regime of former president Yahya Jammeh. However, since Jammeh left office in 2016, many influential Muslim clerics have pushed for the ban to be annulled.
Although there are some opposing views from leading Islamic scholars in Egypt, Gambia’s main Islamic body, The Supreme Islamic Council, supports lifting the ban. The lawmaker sponsoring the bill argues that his stance is driven by the need to maintain religious purity and safeguard cultural norms.
Approving the bill to lift the ban on FGM would be a step backward and a clear violation of the human rights and health of women. FGM has no health benefits but only serves to harm girls and women in many ways. Hopefully, Gambia’s National Assembly will take the right step by rejecting the bill and making provisions for public awareness campaigns to properly educate the public on FGM’s health complications.
Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) faces probe over pregnancy, HIV tests for recruits
UK plans to pay asylum seekers to move to Rwanda
How an Indigenous dialect Radio station in Kenya revives a dying minority language
Standing out within the Mau Forest Complex, in a forested area approximately 210km west of Nairobi, Kenya, is an over 60-foot steel radio mast with an aviation light on top. Inching closer, a wooden fence intertwined with wire mesh separates the compound of Sogoot 97.1 FM from the houses around it.
A community radio station, Sogoot, which in Ogiek means “leaves,” broadcasts in Ogiek from 6 am to 11 pm daily, educating and giving direction to thousands of Ogieks within the station’s 30-kilometre radius.
“Sogoot FM is a game changer for us,” says Stephen Lele, station manager and a founding member of Sogoot FM. “Within where we reside, we haven’t heard any radio station that broadcasts in our language. Our shows focus on everything that touches on humanity, from culture, health, education, leadership and governance, conservation, social, and economic empowerment”.
Why are affluent Zimbabweans cornering shops meant for low-income families?
The mid-morning Saturday sun is still weak in Stoneridge Park Township, south of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Kiosk stores are already filled with smokers, bargain hunters and noisy street touts. Today is unlike weekdays when buses with city-center-bound commuters race past kiosk stores without dropping off passengers.
The sprawling township is home to Pamacongo, one of the cheap food markets in Harare, located in a low-income neighborhood where many residents supplement their food needs via home gardens. Because of this, food prices are relatively low, attracting many city dwellers.
Among these is 41-year-old Samy Jangwa, a resident of Borrowdale, Harare’s most glamorous neighborhood.
“My family lives in Borrowdale. For our staples, we drive 20 miles to forage in townships [and]food stores and restock our kitchens,” the software teacher at an upscale private school in Harare says.
This food migration began to gain steam four years ago as Zimbabwe’s inflation started climbing worryingly again after brief years of a lull.
It resulted in middle-class suburban supermarkets and food stores like SPAR, Bon Marche and those located in city-centres becoming incredibly expensive.
Rose left Nigeria full of optimism for all that Britain has to offer.
The first of five children, her father had been a trader until he lost his shop, which meant the family could not pay for her to continue her education.
So when a family friend from church told her of an opportunity to become a nanny for a wealthy UK couple, who would sponsor her studies, she jumped at the chance. She travelled to the UK on a six-month tourist visa. When she first met the couple, she says they seemed “nice” and gave her a room in their four-bed apartment, but she soon found the work was not as advertised.
Rose, not her real name, says she was taken to a restaurant owned by the couple, where she would cook and clean from 17:00 to 05:00. She worked six days a week, and on her only day off did more chores at home.
“I felt so exhausted… so empty. This was not what they promised me,” she says.
A recent attack on a young trans couple in Greece has left LGBTQIA+ people shaken, with some describing the incident a reminder of how “extremely polarised” the country is on equal rights.
A mob of almost 200 people cursed, spat and threw bottles at the pair in Thessaloniki on Saturday (9 March) night, resulting in the arrests of more than 20 people. Thousands took to the streets in protest of what happened the following evening, though the LGBTQIA+ community’s concerns are far from quashed.
“Greece is a very homophobic country,” says conceptual artist and filmmaker Fil Ieropoulos, who was born in Athens and raised in northern Greece. “It’s a very macho, traditionalist, fundamentalist, religious place where racist, homophobic, misogynist, transphobic behaviours have been tolerated for way too long. One should not be fooled by the pinkwashing of the whole bourgeois Mykonos thing or silly ideas about supposed connections to homosexuality through Ancient Greece.”
Zimbabwe police charge self-proclaimed prophet Ishmael and rescue 251 children
A self-proclaimed Apostolic prophet who kept 251 children on his property has been charged with exploiting minors.
Police said that Ishmael Chokurongerwa, 56, led a sect with more than 1,000 members in Harare. The children were allegedly used for cheap labour. Unregistered graves, believed to be of infants, were also found.
Chokurongerwa was arrested on Tuesday “for criminal activities which include abuse of minors”.
He appeared alongside seven congregants before a magistrate’s court on Thursday. All eight of them were charged with violating children’s rights and contravening burial and cremation laws.
The Zimbabwe Republic Police released a statement on Wednesday saying that the arrest followed a raid. Officers discovered that 251 minors were found living on a farm run by Chokurongerwa about 34km (21 miles) north-west of the capital, Harare.
Some 246 out of the 251 children staying at the property had no birth certificates.
First top-flight male soccer star to publicly identify as gay proposes to partner on home pitch
Josh Cavallo, the first top-flight male professional soccer star to publicly identify as gay, has blazed a new trail by proposing to his partner on the pitch of his club.
The Australian player made history in 2021 when he posted an emotional online video to talk about his sexuality and vowing to change the sport’s culture “to show that everyone is welcome in the game of football.”
His announcement was hailed as a watershed moment in a sport with a long and troubled history of entrenched homophobia, particularly in the men’s game. Since then, Cavallo, 24, has become one of the most recognizable faces in the sport and an outspoken advocate for greater equality for the LGBTQ community.
On Thursday, he announced that he had proposed to his fiancée at Coopers Stadium, home pitch of his Australian A-League team Adelaide United.
Alongside a picture of him down on one knee, holding out a ring, Cavallo declared in a post on X: “Starting this year with my fiancée.”
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