Learning4Peace/Solomon Islands/Content/Highlighting our customs

Highlighting Our Customs

• Click here to see our Ning site and listen to “Reviving Our Customs – Kwarao Fishing”, the first community radio programme by Sigana Community with assistance from Susubona, Kolotubi and, Tataba and Lelegia youth and FM radio members. Click the "Downloads" tab to access and download the mp3 files.

• Educational Wikieducator article on "Kwarao Fishing".

Content

The following content was developed by the youth members at the Sigana workshop:

• Selection of custom music (Isabel Women's traditional singing)
• Community consultations to Identify of a custom to highlight. The custom selected was “Kwarao Fishing”. This is a custom fishing method involving the making of a very long rope from a particular type of bush vine. The fishing involves encircling a large area of lagoon or sea at low tide, with the rope, and the fish are herded into the centre to be caught.
• Recording of introduction explaining the programme, including a “hook”
• A storytelling about the Kwarao fishing by a selected elder, who first learned Kwarao as a boy
• Sound effects of sea and kwarao fishing sounds
• Presenter concluding remarks and credits

The programme was mixed down using Audacity by David. This was the only outside assistance given in the production of the programme. The programme was designed by Isabel youth members including consulting their communities to identify the topic, development of the storyboard and recording of all the content.

This programme was first played on Buala FM on Saturday 13^th June, and a copy has been sent back to Sigana and thence to the other FM radio stations on CD.

This particular program (Kwarao and Gria fishing) has a linkage to UNDP's Conservation programme, based in Buala. This aims to work with communities to identify traditional methods of conservation and sustainable harvesting of marine resources. This issue is explored in Storyboard 1 “Shortage of Sea Resources”. This is an example of how community media can link genuine community demand to Isabel's official development programmes and create synergy that helps to carry forward and sustain continuing content development.

This storyboard can be used for other customs, and will be a regular or serial programme. In addition, the following were completed:

• Tataba recorded an elder storytelling about their selected custom, “Gria” fishing. This is similar to Kwarao but with differences, a net being made of the bush vine, with a large mesh.
• Tataba also identified Custom Pudding to be highlighted in the series. This is a cassava and coconut-based pudding which is used in traditional meetings to do with land rights and other events.
• A Wikieducator article will also be created for the above, with instructions and illustrations.

Storyboard

Sigana Group 2 developed from original idea by Tataba Reviving our customs – high lighting customs that are special to Isabelians. This can be a regular program. Can highlight special customs in a regular series of programs Community can be consulted to choose customs to highlight Results can be transcribed and an archive of educational articles about Isabel customs created on the Wikieducator Tataba selected "Gria" custom fishing using a team with a leader with passed-on custom knowledge, uses a net made of bush vine to catch offshore bonito tuna Also selected by Tataba was custom pudding, a food that has a place in ceremonies associated with land rights etc This addresses the concerns of elders that customs are eroded by changes in culture often perceived to be introduced by young people Ender / Jody have some specific questions to guide the interviewer (will copy to email group), also will interview specific Isabel people (tourism, etc) to gather information about other customs such as custom sports, traditional custom cooking, clothes, lingo etc
			Sound effects of fishing etc
Music	Presenter introduces	Presenter introduces and explains briefly about Kwarao – custom fishing with a vine	Interview and story telling with elder	Community opinions	Summary by presenter	Music – theme song
Lyrics to be written by Sigana with help from networking and song recorded with help from Rolley Bogese		Can be repeated with different custom	A suitably skilled elder or community member to tell the story in Pidjin language. A second version can be made using local language and also in English The presenter will let the elder tell the story and then ask a few questions to fill in any gaps and clarify things.
0	1m	3m	9m	19m	23m	24m
25 min