VOLUNTEERING FOR SAWBO – Gabriel Ingubu
Becoming a SAWBO volunteer
Nzoia River is the second largest in Kenya flowing with water capacity of about 3,721 million cubic meters annually. The river is known for flooding towards its mouth in Budalangi areas of Busia County, just before Lake Victoria. With increased encroachment on Nzoia banks, many families have started experiencing flooding on the upper side in Bungoma and Kakamega counties. In the first quarter of 2020, the rains overpassed normalcy and caused floods to farms leaving water raised feet high. This submerged germinating maize and beans crops for two weeks in Mwikhupo village, Bungoma County.
When I was called to cover the story in the second week, I instead grouped the affected women together and asked them to plant rice in the flooded farms. The women are fans of my radio show. Since they did not have an idea of upland rice, I consulted for them with a friend in the Bungoma County Agriculture office and we set up a pilot plot on half an acre. In November, the women called me to come and witness their happiness from their first harvest of ten bags. I posted the story on my Facebook page. After a day, I received three main calls, one from Reuters International, another one from BBC Nairobi, and the last one from Sammy Lutomia, founder of Global Youth Groove (GYG).
The two media houses were purely on covering the story, but with Sammy it became a daily conversation on how to empower the community through sharing knowledge for food security. He then introduced me to Scientific Animations without Borders (SAWBO) through GYG in early 2021. I started sharing SAWBO educational video content to the villages passionately. Every weekend, I traveled to a village or market center within my listenership scope to share a particular video.
Most villages do not have electricity, internet, and some don’t have a stable, normal phone network. Because of this, many dwellers do not have access to online content. To make sure that useful information produced by SAWBO reaches this disadvantaged group, I would download a video of interest, power a laptop, or my smartphone, then do a door-to-door, or group visit showing the video and training the members. To date, I can confidently report that more than 400 rural homesteads and 100 groups of 15 members on average in Kakamega, Bungoma, Busia, and Transnzoia counties, have been visited and watched a video on post-harvest loss bean storage, raised beds, compost manure, the push and pull method, PICS bags, Covid 19 prevention, table banking, and using charcoal to sieve water.
 |
|
Abigail Lusweti doing a recap after training a women’s group in Bungoma on jerrycan bean storage method. Photo credit: G. Ingubu
Women watching video animations in Kakamega and Bungoma Counties. Photo Credit: G. Ingubu
Going to the UNESCO Conference in Migori County, Kenya
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is making life easier in remote areas. I have witnessed people who watched a video and implemented what they have learned on their farms. In mid-2021, I saw a competition by Farm Radio International about raising women’s voices in rural Africa. I had visited numerous homes and talked to several people about the jerrycan bean storage technique. I entered the competition using one of the radio programs I had developed from content that I aired on my evening show in this competition, I described how ICT is transforming agriculture in rural Kenya. I focused on rural women using jerrycan containers to safely store legumes and cereal (Postharvest Loss: Jerrycan Bean Storage https://youtu.be/lymS2eVdeUQ). I also remarked that in rural Kenya, much of the farm work is done by the women, but the men enjoy most of the benefits. Moreover, men own access to internet and have more smartphones than women. I did not win the competition; however, I received a call asking me to attend a training by UNESCO in Migori County at Rongo University on how to make podcasts in agriculture. The caller told me that she had been given my number because of my engagement with the community and the programs I shared in the award competition.
Learning to be a Podcaster
Professor Zack N. Otieno explaining climate smart push and pull system: Photo by: G. Ingubu
The workshop took place October 3-7, 2022. It was dubbed, Capacity Building Workshop for Community Media on Content Development for Sustainable Food Growing Systems Through Participatory Radio Podcasts. The workshop’s main goal was to teach the selected journalists from community radio stations across western Kenya how to make a podcast on agricultural topics more so focusing on indigenous food production ways.
When making a podcast, you can either decide to produce it as a panel, one guest interview, or monolog. In addition, you can choose a feature style, but more importantly it must be consistent. The workshop became an eye opener to me because I had never done a podcast as per the training teachings. With 55 participants among the facilitators, Professor Zack Ngao Otieno who is also the chair UNESCO at Rongo University inspired us to do more in our stations. In his presentation on pre- and post-harvest loss, Professor Otieno had a slide on the push and pull method and had very interesting explanations. During this session I offered to share my knowledge in post-harvest loss. I was given the opportunity to download and show the participants SAWBO’s, Climate-smart Push-pull System for Stem Borer Management in Maize in Swahili (accent from Kenya) https://youtu.be/KWdyW2sqlvY
Becoming a Podcaster
Wanawake na Kilimo (Women and Farming) is the name of my podcast series that I will be producing as a result of this training. My podcast was inspired by a shocking fact that Dr. Sumba, a facilitator in the training revealed. He told us, that a study has shown, that women and children are most affected by lack of food, even though they are the main producers of food. They are involved in doing the farm work and preparation. I will use SAWBO video animations in my podcasts – SAWBO is a relevant and good-fit source of content for this production. I will start by visiting the homes I visited before where we watched the videos. I will record the impact in different areas. The program is purely a pre-recording that will also have residual airplay as it will be posted for online users. I plan to air my first podcast during the first week of November 2022, then proceed weekly.
About the author
Gabriel Ingubu is an
award-winning Kenyan journalist, radio presenter, and content developer who is
currently working for Tandaza FM based in Bungoma town Western Kenya besides
publishing with Sayansi Magazine. He has worked as a correspondent for Middle
East Health tourism magazine, Radio Mukwano, and published health feature
stories with Daily Nation Newspaper. He currently hosts an evening show called
Wahenga at Tandaza FM and co-hosts the breakfast show. He also produces
features, fillers, and other recorded programs. In 2022 he was the second
runner up of the annual journalism excellent awards, radio category.
Career
Gabriel started volunteering at Masinde Muliro University radio studio in 2012 while studying. After completion of his studies in 2014, he extended for two years then joined Mukwano radio in 2016. At Mukwano, he took numerous short courses in health, environment, wildlife, agriculture, and data journalism. He was among six journalists from East Africa selected in 2019 to attend United Nation's African Climate Week in Accra Ghana.
Comments
Post a Comment