In Kauda, a remote town in the heart of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, southern Sudan, many children don't attend school at all. If they do have access to a teacher, the lessons are often held under trees and the teachers lack even basic resources such as desks, books and pens.
Mary Joseph, who works for the education department of the government of South Sudan, and her friend Maclena decided to do something about it.
"I realized that friends of my own children couldn't even name the colors they were seeing around them. They don't even know red, blue and green," said Maclena. "How will they get on when they are grown? We had to do something."
It was listening to Voice of Community Kauda 88FM, the Internews-run community radio station, that gave Mary Joseph the idea to broadcast a weekly show for the children. Every Monday, around 40 children arrive at Maclena's tukul (hut), just outside the radio station. They rehearse group songs, poems and dramas as well as answer quiz questions on subjects like geography, math and simple politics. The children, both Muslim and Christian, are aged three to fourteen years old – and all get the chance to take part.
On Wednesdays, one of the radio station reporters meets the group, again at Maclena's tukul, to help them record their pre-rehearsed show.
"The sessions are always fun to take part in, I really love coming to record the children. Afterwards, I take the audio to the station and edit it so that we have a 30-minute show to be broadcast. It works very well," says Tarig, radio station reporter at Voice of Community 88FM.
Mary Joseph adds, "Radio is the best way for more and more children to receive good information. Every week, more children come because they have heard the show. Soon we will have no more room!"
Voice of Community is one of four community radio stations, run by and for local Sudanese, that Internews has established to inform and educate hundreds of thousands of people in Southern Sudan's most remote regions. Internews' program in Sudan is funded by the US Agency for International Development.
