Community Media/KCOMNET
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Contents
About Us
KCOMNET has been in the forefront in the promotion of community media in Kenya. Through lobbying and advocacy b Kcomnet, community media has been recognized as a third sector of broadcasting in the country. We currently have 6 established community radio stations and hope to have more in the near future.
KCOMNET's main objective is to empower the communities to own their development agenda and be able to address the same through media. We hope to achieve this through constant networking and sharing of ideas with like-minded people as in our growing Community of Practice.
Community Media & Wheelbarrow Radios
Community media is able to integrate different mediums of communication eg. drama, song and dance, story telling, puppetry, radio listenership groups and community radio stations. The beauty of community media is that community broadcasting can be used to broadcast radio drama, song and story telling for the wider audience.
Some members of the Kenya Community Media Network have 'wheelbarrow radios.' This involves the mounting of audio players on a wheelbarrow which is then pushed to a market place. The groups use music, puppetry and drama to pull crowds and mobilize people to the venue where programmes on health and other community issues are played on the players. One or two facilitators involve the people in discussions followed by Q&As (One of the facilitators could be an expert in the topic of discussion usually drawn from the Government department).
This way, information is delivered to the people and there is instant feedback from them. This enables a bottom up approach with the grassroots concerns being communicated to the local government.
Radio drama and song are fully participatory which ensures the community's participation in programme production.