The Analysis Identified Good Practices And Highlighted Which Areas Required Improvement.

I met Kojo Oppong, a producer and presenter of the agriculture programme at Radio Peace in the Central Region, at the nation’s dissemination workshop hosted by Farm Radio World held on July twenty, 2011. Mr. Oppong spoke frankly about having Radio Peace be part of the African Rural Radio Program Research (ARRPA) research.

He strongly inspires the idea of permitting others into the studio to witness the radio station’s internal workings as a part of a process of learning. The ARRPA research included visits to list of radio stations in Ghana and went into the community to research the production process as well as the way the listeners receive the work being done at the stations. Mr. Oppong was fascinated that the work he does within the radio station had been laid bare for others thru the ARRPA research in an attempt to market education and information sharing.

Holding a dissemination workshop, he continued, provided many benefits, paving the way for positive change. Having learned a lot from the data shared, he feels everyone has acquired new skills which will improve the programs being broadcasted.

In particular, he feels the utilization of music will greatly appeal to the listening audience, adding a bit of color to the programme, and the implementation of new formats to boost programming. Successive workshops will help further build the capacity of broadcast writers as well as others concerned in agricultural programme production.

ARRPA was a study carried out by Farm Radio Global that intended to gather and investigate information about the smallholder farmer radio programs in five sub-Saharan African countries Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, Malawi, and Tanzania.

The analysis identified good practices and highlighted which areas required improvement. The workshop provided the break for networking between stations country-wide and key shareholders in farm radio, making allowance for information sharing and lessons learned from each other’s practices. The purpose of such a workshop was to spot the services, policies and processes that would result in better farm radio programs serving the wants of farmers.

One activity that was a part of inspiring interactiveness among the group of participators was conducting interviews between people who participated in the ARRPA research and people who hadn’t, which would facilitate group discussions. Specific to the group interview I helped, both sides concluded that farm radio is a process of learning and that scripts play a big role in benefitting the station as well as the listeners.

Radio Peace was among the group members, with much to offer the discussion as a partaker in the ARRPA research. The study helped bring to light an experience of how listeners think and highlighted the need to go beyond the studio into the community. Everybody was adamant that farm radio should be community-based, acquiring constant feedback from the farmers to provide important programming. It’s essential to meet with farmers directly to identify their wishes in order to address them efficiently.

I feel I gave a good deal to the content and experience of the workshop, illustrating the breadth of information I have acquired over the course of my internship with Farm Radio World. It also provided me the chance to improve on my skills in public presenting. Overall, it had been a very successful workshop concluding with suggestions for the way forward as reported tagza.com.