Karonga’s Dinosaur FM goes on air

Yandire ukupilikiwa lilino, so they say. Radio Dinosaur FM has gone on air to involve citizens of Karonga and Chitipa in debate and decision making in issues affecting them, including cultural discourses. JAMES CHAVULA writes.

Just a month old on 91.0MHz, Dinosaur FM is a tribute to Malawisaurus, the prehistoric creature whose skeleton was unearthed in the shoreline district considered the cradle of human kind by evolutionists.

Its primacy forms a thematic exhibition at Karonga Museum.

Raymond Mwenefumbo and Alexander Mhango are busy fine-tuning the station in the country’s largest uranium mining town. The two have spent the past month setting up studios, planting transmitters and monitoring test broadcasts. They envision the community radio taking a leading part in interactive broadcasts, involving the people within its 100 kilometre radius in debating and decision-making through relevant programming. Its coverage area stretches to Misuku and Nthalire in Chitipa all the way to Chilumba in Karonga South and Songwe on the northern border with Tanzania.

“The people of Karonga are unique,” says project manager Mwenefumbo.

“They want to know what is happening in their midst. They want to know what decisions authorities are making in their name. They want to discuss issues affecting them in the language the majority of them understand.”

Last year, Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (Macra) licensed a host of stations, including Dinosaur and Tuntufye FM. The latter belongs to the Karonga Diocese of the Catholic Church.

Being a community broadcaster, Dinosaur FM on 91.0MHZ feels it is better placed to give its audience relevant programming they seldom get on national stations, including the State-sponsored Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).

“We will be airing relevant programmes for the people of Karonga and our reporters and presenters will be working in Ngonde and Tumbuka, the most spoken languages in the district,” says project advisor Mhango.

The station’s skeletal facilities include studios soundproofed by cartons used to dispatch the machines from Germany. From the makeshift cubicles, the station does not only air Ngonde and Tumbuka songs. It also broadcast live a public debate for members of Parliament organised by the National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice Trust) three weeks ago.

With 65 in 100 Malawians unable to read and write, the brains behind Dinosaur FM say the majority of the Ngonde-speaking district’s population has problems accessing vital information in the written press and electronic media whose content is predominantly English.

“It is said that if you want to hide something from Malawians put it in writing. It’s the rude truth. But we don’t want to hide anything from the people of Karonga. We want to empower them with information so that they can take part in social economic issues affecting their communities,” says Mhango.

The station is emerging with the assistance of the Karonga community Trust. The collectivity of Karonga’s citizens—including Blantyre-based Steve Mapunda, former Law Society president Gift Mwakhwawa and Vitowe Ndakuzi as well as Chief Kyungu, Mwakaoko, Mwilang’ombe and Wasambo—has the primary role to raise funds even abroad.

Having toured the station, Nice executive director Ollen Mwalubuunju says the new station on the bloc is a good development because media diversity is pivotal in promoting professionalism and entrenching democracy.

“Community Radios are good for dissemination of messages since they target a localised audience and in the languages that many understand,” says Mwalubunju, urging government and non-governmental organisations to harness the superiority of Radio Dinosaur to spread their messages and best practices.

Nice uses a diversity of approaches—songs, sports competitions, drama, debates and rallies—to attract and inform people as a way of entrenching democracy and helping them take part in public life.

For the people who have long been glued to countrywide stations that claim to have a little something for everyone, the coming of Dinosaur guarantees them a partner who promises more and more about them and their communities.