Various Locations around Lake Chad Basin, Chad
June 2016
107.8
5 x 1000W
Radio Ndarason Internationale is the world’s first Kanuri, Kanembu and Boudouma broadcaster. From its studios in N’Djamena Chad and Maiduguri in Nigeria’s northeast Borno State, RNI covers the entire Lake Chad Basin and beyond with shortwave transmissions, FM and live streaming.
A network of correspondents in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger assures coverage of important events throughout an area that continues to suffer from insurgency and lack of development. RNI is in a development phase, and there is much activity underway to ensure that the region will receive better coverage and that listeners, wherever they live, will be able to interact more easily with the station so that, amongst other things, they can make informed decisions about their lives. This is particularly important for the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees living throughout the region.
Frequencies and broadcast times; the RNI radio network broadcasts on shortwave across the whole region and beyond, three hours of programmes every morning and three hours in the evening. In addition we have an FM transmitter in N’Djamena (107.1 FM) and another at Bol beside Lake Chad.
History: The radio started broadcasting in 2015 as a one hour a day service based in Kano, Nigeria called Dandal Kura Radio International (DKRI). In early 2016 we moved the studios to Maiduguri, NE Nigeria and began broadcasting 6 hours a day of mostly Kanuri language content.
For administrative reasons in 2016 we moved the headquarters of the operation to Ndjamena, Chad, but continued broadcasting as before. The next phase of development envisages the growing importance of N’Djamena as the key production and administration centre for the network. To reflect this development, a more regionally inclusive name for the radio is being used – Radio Ndarason Internationale (RNI).
M&E; The growing place the radio occupies is evident in a just completed survey carried out in the Chadian capital as well as in the Lake Chad area. Survey results show that the station is a key driver in the effort to create a positive dialogue in the region, but its work is not complete.
These are some of the key findings by ORB International, a US-based research organisation specialising in quantitative and qualitative research in complex environments:
The main role of this radio is to serve as a tool against extreme violence. It serves as a platform to promote local discourse among all actors affected by the current crisis in the Lake Chad region.
Based on the assumption that dialogue is the necessary condition for finding a peaceful solution is sustainable, which in turn leads us to a better quality of life.
The radio serves as a mechanism to convince people that they have a future in the region. Written in broader terms – if we can believe that a better life is possible in the Lake Chad region, the need and desire to migrate to settle elsewhere is diminishing.
The radio, in partnership with the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), is broadcasting content in Kanembu and Kanuri languages in order to help stabilize the Lake Chad region by stimulating constructive dialogue between everyone involved in the project. current crisis.
Radioactive has provided broadcast consultancy, technical support and equipment for Okapi projects across Africa and has worked on Radio Ndarason since its inception in 2015.
We recently supported the expansion of the station to four new transmission sites around the Lake Chad basin.
To find out more or listen live you can visit the Ndarason website.
