BBC helps bring ‘New Life’ to ordinary Afghans

In Afghanistan, where access to basic education is poor and illiteracy rates high, a unique educational radio drama developed by the BBC, is having an unprecedented impact on the lives of ordinary Afghans. A soap opera ‘New Home New Life’, now in its eighth year, is one of a host of educational feature programmes produced by a BBC Afghan Education Unit in Peshawar and broadcast by the World Service in Pashto and Persian. A dedicated team of more than 100 Afghan writers, editors, actors and actresses, produce three-weekly bulletins which have a captive audience - surveys indicate up to 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population of radio listeners (reportedly 75 percent) regularly tune in. The soap’s popularity even stems to officials of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban movement who reputedly are avid followers, and to refugees in camps in Pakistan. ‘New Home New Life’ seeks to raise levels of education and social awareness across a broad range of social themes, through culturally relevant drama. The story follows life in two fictional villages in Afghanistan. Though it avoids politics, it covers conflict resolution at a micro-level: from how it affects a family, a village and eventually the conflict between two villages. The familiarity of the cultural context within ‘New Home New Life’ allows its audience to gossip and debate topics that are of immediate relevance to their own lives. Radio is the only means of communication, information and entertainment universally available within Afghanistan. Many Afghans maintain radio is effectively their only window on events occurring within their country and internationally. Moreso, for the many illiterate, ‘New Home New Life’ provides a particularly important means of instruction. For women, radio provides a means of education that is closed to them as a consequence of both cultural constraints and political decrees. According to a 22-year old unmarried woman from Khost in Paktia province: “Radio is important because it gives us education. We don’t have any other source of education and our Paktia Pashtun people [of the eastern region] don’t let their daughters go to school. They feel shame over the thought of sending their daughters to school, so tell me where they can get education?” Through drama and role-play, ‘New Home New Life’ offers advice on health issues including vaccinations and hygiene, childcare, mine awareness, drug addiction and alternatives to poppy growing, literacy promotion and gender, social and humanitarian issues. A survey in Khost revealed a young Afghan who had lost his leg in a mine explosion. He said that though he was badly disturbed, his hopes had risen when he was fitted with a leg by a local aid agency. Subsequent problems meant he had to be re-fitted with a more comfortable leg in Peshawar in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province which allowed him more flexibility and enabled him to pursue his own business - a bicycle repair shop in his Afghan village. He maintained that he had drawn much inspiration from the plight of Jandad, a character in ‘New Home New Life’, who had suffered a similar fate but had triumphed to begin his own tailoring business. Another Afghan told how her family had changed their behaviour toward seeking medical help. Traditionally they had bought medicines from their local bazaar and taken them without the advice of a doctor. ‘New Home New Life’ had educated them on the dangers of such a practice and subsequently they had sought medical help when sick. In Khost, malaria has been a constant threat, stemming from stagnant water in numerous large craters made by Scud missiles. However after listening to an episode which focused on the symptoms, treatment and traditional practices associated with malaria, local Afghans immediately filled in the craters and the result was a reduction in the disease. Other Afghans identified behaviour changes across a range of issues, including hygiene, sanitation, vaccination, the use of clean water and even stealing archaeological artefacts. Several Taliban officials surveyed requested a higher profile for Islam and noted that women’s voices were against Islam. However this in no way appeared to hamper their enjoyment of the drama. The popularity of the soap opera has been clear to aid agencies working in Afghanistan. A relief worker with the Norwegian Afghan Committee (NAC) conducting vaccinations for children in a hospital in Ghazni province in Afghanistan’s central region, cited the soap opera as a reason for an increase in the number of children arriving for immunisations. The NAC also found that illiterate women in rural areas were avid followers and discussed the everyday problems that affected the characters. A London anthropologist, Andrew Skuse, who used the soap opera as the basis of his 1997 thesis, concluded that the role of everyday talk or gossip was crucial to the circulation of educational messages throughout villages. He revealed the impact was different according to men and women. “Men appear to identify with the rational worldly topics of economic activity and conflict management for which their culture has already clearly defined their role, while women appear to identify with domestic and childcare issues that reflect upon their relative isolation from the public domain.” For men, feelings of sorrow related to the lack of opportunities to fulfil the role of provider. For women, sorrow centred largely on domestic traumas, the loss of a close male relative or marriage, when a young girl was forced to leave her home and move to the home of her husband. Head of the Afghan Education Unit, Shirazuddin Siddiqui, says the soap is more accessible than any other radio programme because it uses the language of the rural communities and not the language of the universities. “That’s why women have started listening to it.” This was supported by a monitor from the Swedish Committee of Afghanistan who found that in Paktika province [in the eastern region], women had acquired radios for the very purpose of listening to the drama. Statistical data from Khost in Paktia province, one of the most conservative Pashtun areas within Afghanistan’s south east region, reveals that women will go to considerable lengths to ensure that they listen to the drama. The most common female constraint to regular listening was immediate male kin forbidding women from using or listening to radio. One married women revealed: “When I was in my father’s house I was listening to the drama every day, but when I got married the family of my husband didn’t allow me to listen. Sometimes when they [men] go for Friday prayers I start the radio and I listen to the drama, but with so many fears about my husband’s family.” Despite these challenges, the production team has developed an innovative aspect of the programme - a dedicated monitoring and evaluation team which regularly consults audience reactions and generates feedback that is used by scriptwriters in adapting and reorientating the storyline of the soap opera. The success of ‘New Home New Life’ and its related feature programmes has led to a new project called Reach - Radio Education for Afghan Children. It comprises several different learning areas including one strand which focuses on stimulating thinking and imagination and another which aims to create an understanding of how other cultures live. It aims to target Afghan children including refugees who may be returning home with their families after years of conflict. One such returnee highlighted the impact of the drama “New Home New Life is more than an entertaining programme. It is a lesson for Afghan people returning home after years of fighting, on how to construct a new home and a new life for themselves,” he said.