Category: Radio
4; Africa
Date: 28.04.2005
Printable version
On Wednesday 25 May, 麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 4 focusses on Africa
with a day of programming that aims to evoke the current realities of
life and the sights, sounds, issues and debates in this vast and vibrant
continent.
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In a range of programmes - from current affairs to arts and documentary
- A Day In Africa explores the cultural vitality and
economic complexity of the continent, and sets the context for some
of the important issues facing its people and their relationship with
the rest of the world.
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A Day in Africa is part of a wide variety of 麻豆官网首页入口 programmes and initiatives about Africa this year, across services within the UK and worldwide.
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The aim is to engage audiences with a broader representation of Africa, providing new perspectives and understanding of the continent.
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Throughout 25 May on Radio 4, Caf茅 Africa presents a series
of 11 snapshots of caf茅 life across the continent, swinging from North
to South and from dawn until midnight.
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Beginning at dawn in Morocco on Africa's Mediterranean coast, and ending
beyond midnight in a late-night Cape Town hang-out, this whistle-stop
tour eavesdrops on conversations about money, politics, work and home
life, meeting a cross-section of people who share a moment of their
lives and thoughts.
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A taxman in Ghana bemoans his stressful day trying to persuade market
traders to pay up; a female visitor to an internet caf茅 shows why it's
become the best way for her to keep in touch with her boyfriend (despite
the regular power cuts); and a barman in Zambia reveals his hopes and
fears for his children.
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The Very Reverend Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop
Emeritus of Cape Town and Nobel Prize winner, gives the Prayer
For The Day (5.43am).
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Farming Today (5.45am)
reports from Kenya, where aid agencies claim that the jobs of 20 per
cent of the population - six million people - are under threat because
of the actions of the EU.
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They say a combination of cheap European sugar being dumped on the
country, and EU plans to lower the guaranteed price of sugar, will decimate
a vital part of Kenya's economy.
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Miriam O'Reilly will be in Kenya's Rift Valley, on
the shores of Lake Victoria, in the town of Kisumu - where a sugar mill
was forced to close, still owing farmers 拢200m after cheap EU sugar
was "dumped" there.
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James Naughtie co-presents a special
edition of Today (6.00am)
live from Abuja, capital of Nigeria - the most populous country in Africa
- with Sarah Montague in London and Mike Thomson
reporting from another part of the continent.
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The Thought For The Day
(7.50am) is delivered by Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja,
President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference Of Nigeria.
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Over the past 50 years, a huge wealth and variety of literature has
been produced by writers who were born on the African continent.
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This week, Book Of The Week: On Being
African (Monday to Friday at 9.45am) presents extracts
from five intimate, autobiographical accounts by African writers whose
early experiences have thrown up all sorts of questions about who they
are and where they are really from.
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Chinua Achebe, Camara Laye, Bessie
Head, Chris Van Wyk and Ekow Eshun
have all grappled, in their writing, with the nature of identity in
a world of shifting boundaries and conflicting countries.
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The Reverend Rogers Govender leads the
Daily Service on Radio 4 Long Wave at 9.45am from Manchester's
Didsbury Church, with music from the continent.
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Fostering within families - a practice which is widespread within Africa
- is the focus of a special report from Ghana for Woman's
Hour (10.00am), followed by a studio discussion.
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In the northern region of Ghana, almost every family has a foster child
who is a relative. Traditionally, girls have been sent to live with
paternal aunts to strengthen family ties. But due to increasing poverty,
many girls are becoming little more than domestic slaves.
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Woman's Hour finds out what is happening to help these girls, whether
fostering both here and in Africa can ever truly be regulated, and investigates
how the African tradition of fostering has transferred to Britain.
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After the death of Victoria Climbie - who was sent here by her parents
in a private fostering arrangement - the Government pledged to reform
such practices.
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As the new regulations come into effect, Jenni Murray
and guests discuss whether it is possible to nurture the positive aspects
of African fostering, whilst safeguarding children.
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You and Yours
(noon) focusses on the money earned by African people working in the
UK and sending some of the wage home, meeting workers from a variety
of trades and assessing their contribution to the African economy.
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The programme also reports on a new school of pharmacy being established
in Malawi by Manchester University.
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Radio 4 shares in a World Service perspective on African current affairs
through an edition of its daily broadcast Network
Africa (3.00pm).
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In the past decade, a media revolution in Africa and rapid liberalisation
of the press have dramatically changed the way Africans view the world:
their thinking, behaviour and expectations.
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In Africa's Fourth Estate (daily from Monday to Friday at 3.45pm),
Tanzanian journalist Adam Lusekelo
meets some of the movers and shakers in the continent's communications
revolution, and asks how they are changing perceptions in a post 9/11
world.
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Urunana is a radio soap in Rwanda, modelled on the
Archers.
In a country where 11 per cent of the population is HIV positive, the
programme tackles taboo issues of sexual health and works to build reconciliation
after the genocide of 1994. Then, radio was used to whip up hatred.
Now, Urunana's enormous popularity has restored the nation's
respect for the medium.
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Adam meets Soli Philander, a well known Cape Town
comedian and personality, whose new reality TV show Lets Fix It is attempting
to tackle post-Apartheid problems and change attitudes about what South
Africans can do to help themselves.
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In Thinking Allowed
(4.00pm) Professor Robin Cohen, former Dean of Humanities
at the University of Cape Town and later Visiting Professor, and now
Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, talks about the
university-wide changes that have taken place since the end of Apartheid
and in what ways it has affected students and changed student life.
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Jonathan Dimbleby chairs a special edition of Any
Questions? (8.00pm), hosted by the Royal African Society
at London University's School Of Oriental and African Studies; the panel
of leading commentators will respond to questions from the audience
about the most urgent political, economic and social issues facing the
continent today.
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The day reaches its climax at 11.00pm, with a half hour feature, Caf茅
Africa, which brings together the sounds, music and
voices from Tangiers to Table Mountain that have been heard throughout
the day.
