Dada Radio: Station giving voice to the voiceless women of Siaya

Harriet Atyang would walk to school barefoot, and feel lightheaded. She would see blue, red, and sometimes green butterflies when there were none.

Why? There was something impure circulating in little Harriet’s brain - the traditional brew commonly known as busaa.

Her mother single-handedly brought her up alongside seven siblings in Busia, western Kenya. She had nothing. All she had was a tiny earthen house from where she brewed the unlicensed liquor to send her children to school. The earnings were so thin that they could not be stretched any further to buy even one kilo of maize flour to cook for her children.

On the days when lady luck glanced at her, she could find rotten bread or food in the garbage she rummaged through.

“Interestingly, we didn’t have a stomach ache. God watched over us,” says Harriet.

When the lady with a generous hand took a walk on them, the only meal that smiled at them was busaa, the alcohol that often dazes adult men to list all their imaginary ancestors. What about a child going to school?

These memories replayed themselves in Harriet’s mind three years ago after she lost her radio job, at the height of Covid-19.

She was a station manager at a community radio station in Tana River, in Kenya’s coastal region. As Covid-19 hit, businesses melted. Employers would not pay their staff, and so they had to let them go. A case of Harriet. Her job ended in August, 2020.

Inner voice

In the moment of soul searching and wondering what to do next with her life, an inner voice started a conversation with her.

“What do you want?” It asked her.

“I want to start a radio,” she responded. “What about radio?” It further queried.

This question brought back the memories of her unpleasant childhood.

She told the voice: “I want to give women and girls the voice they have never heard. I want women to be empowered. I don’t want to see women and girls go through what my mother or I went through.”

In Harriet’s eyes, her mother was a woman who endured more than her human body could and still remained mentally fit.

“What she was going through can easily make one lose her mind. It was tough. Really tough. Raising eight children all by yourself is never easy,” she says.

“My mother was all alone. She had no one to share her burdens, fears and worries with.”

Having found her “voice” within the voice, in August 2021, Harriet started the process of registering a radio she named Dada, meaning sister.

A friend who was already running his, held her hand and guided her throughout. In December 2022, she obtained a license from the Communications Authority of Kenya.

She used all her savings to buy the necessary equipment and hire three presenters.

June 1, 2023 is like her birthday as it was the day she finally made use of the 88.3 frequency, the airwaves for Dada Radio, “the voice of rural women.”

The radio operates within a 10km radius in Central Gem Ward in Gem Sub-County, in Siaya County, Harriet’s matrimonial home.

“Nothing makes me happy like when the shows we run change the lives of women and girls. What else could I ask for?” she attests.

They run shows on women empowerment. They sensitise women how to identify sexual and gender-based violence, prevent and respond to it.  In some instances, she follows up on defilement cases, especially where the perpetrator is a family member and the clan is colluding to cover up the crime.

“Women are lagging behind in development because they don’t have information on how to do things right, like how you start and sustain a successful business. And so we bring experts to speak to them,” she says.

She visits schools to speak with the girls and encourage them never to give up on their dreams.

“I tell them, I have gone through worse and here I am,” she says.

Presently, she has nine workers at Dada Radio, four of which are full time employees and the rest volunteers.

“The volunteers are the young women and men who are so passionate about journalism and they want to learn. I nurture them because I don’t want their dreams to die. I give them hope that it’s possible to achieve whatever you put your mind into,” she says.

Harriet scored a B in high school. Due to her discipline and zeal, she attracted a sponsor who covered the cost of her diploma in radio production at Kenya Institute of Mass Communication.

Although running the radio is like flying over Mt Longonot in a swimsuit, to Harriet these are challenges that can be overcome by unshakable conviction.

“Yes, I need improved equipment to expand my coverage and reach more women. Yes, I’m using my own resources to run the radio since we haven’t started making any profits to sustain it,” she says.

“I can tell you it has been tough. But what I must tell you and do so over and over again, is that I won’t give up. Because giving up is killing the dreams of many others looking up to me.”