Mitigating the impact in the fight against disease and poverty in Kasama using communication tools a case study of radio Mano Community Station

This report is based on an attachment with Radio Mano Community Station in Kasama, the headquarters of the Northern Province of Zambia, which is about 800 Kilometers north of Lusaka. The aim of the study was to establish the extent to which Radio Mano was contributing to the mitigation in the fight against disease and poverty in Kasama. This was done with the understanding that this could not be accomplished without the involvement of the people the station was trying to serve. This therefore entailed an examination of the extent to which the people of Kasama were involved in the operations of the station and how the station was keeping its broadcasts in line with what the researcher deemed to be priority areas, that was, malaria and poverty reduction. In order to accomplish the above, the study used both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection; specifically, audience survey, in-depth interviews with members of staff at the radio station, five focus group discussions with five listener groups, and content analysis were employed. The methods employed revealed that the radio station had contributed to the mitigation in the fight against malaria and poverty in Kasama since it commenced its broadcasts in 2003. However, in terms of mitigation in the fight against malaria, this contribution had been mainly through the Kasama District Health Management Team (KDHMT) who were the principle sponsors of almost all health-related programmes that the station broadcasted