Radio Kayira: Birth and Objectives

In 1992, activists and progressives from the democratic movement mobilized themselves to set up a transparent radio association that broadcast independently from the ruling government party. With the material and financial support of the Malian civil society, Canadian cooperation, as well as the European civil society, through the FERL and Radio ZinZine, the first station, installed in Bamako, started to broadcast on June 3, 1992 on the 104,4MHZ. It took the significant name of Kayira, meaning "new dawn, new sun, new stage". Its listeners dubbed it: the Radio for those without a voice.

General Objectives

 Strengthen the momentum of liberating our people who came to overthrow the unpopular and anti-national dictatorship of Moussa Traore of the UDPM
 To encourage and reinforce an open democratic space
 To promote popular participation
 To help Mali reach its potential economically, politically, socially and culturally.

Dynamics of development

During the first five years of its existence, Radio Kayira has expanded. It founded five other stations operating on the FM which emits at Koutiala, Ségou, Mahina, Kita and Koulikoro. The 6 radios thus created the network Communication Kayira. The Kayira principles are based on tolerance, respect and on promoting basic human rights, starting with the right to free speech. Acting as a forum for democratic discussion, Kayira aims to raise awareness and promote public education.

The Kayira Network assigned each radio objectives which combine our ethics, and our identity:

 To inform independently on local, regional, national and international news;
 To promote the basis of participative democracy of including the greatest possible number of citizens, in particular, those who are most vulnerable and without voice;
 To contribute information on health, and the environment;
 To give a voice to public groups;
 To discourage ideas and principles based on intolerance, racism, exclusion and xenophobia;
 To promote positive cultural expressions as opposed to the stereotyped models popularized by major media.

Activities of animation, education, development and defense

The Kayira Network is a chain of local radio station that associates on the basis of participant democracy. Each station does it’s best to take an active part in the communities of their host areas. The Network provides the daily needs of distraction, cultural promotion, information, expression, participation and civic education of the Malian population. Kayira strongly opposes unchecked liberalism and the policy of structural adjustment imposed on the people of Mali by the IMF and the World Bank. It provides employment to about fifty young graduates and under-graduates, supports several hundreds of families indirectly and supports the revenue-generating activities of village associations and other social groups. Also, our network succeeded in liberating from prison political prisoners arbitrarily arrested.

Through our educational and informative programs on the rights and duties of the citizen, the Kayira Network has helped countless people defend themselves against the abuses of the law by the government particularly in the villages where the general administration prevails without any respect of the laws of the country. This multifaceted intervention has encouraged the communities of each station to create a true associative movement that is cooperative and cultural. Indeed, the network counts today several tens of associations that include hundreds of members in Bamako, Koulikoro, Ségou, Kita, Mahina and Koutiala.

Thanks to the animation and the technical support of the local stations of Koutiala and Ségou, village cooperatives and production and stock were put in place. With the initiative of individuals in the Peulhs audience, three centers of alphabetisation in the Peulh language were created in 1997 in the district of Bamako. The centers are animated by three trainers, one of which is a woman. These centers to date add up 65 listeners who, in addition, presently organize themselves to set up various initiatives of assembly. Kayira has trained dozens of animators and technicians who work in four other radio stations not included in the Kayira Network. In addition, numerous administrators of Malian local radios acquired their professional experience by working with the Kayira Network. Furthermore, many radio staff have continued on to create their own radio stations; three radio stations were born by the Kayira Network.

In addition to its participation in the development of the informal economy to combat poverty and misery, the network Kayira attempts to ensure the consolidation and sustainability of an open and free press. Through the iinitiation of URTEL (Union of Independent Radios and Television Programming), the radio undertakes activities regularly aiming at strengthening the technical capacities of broadcasting. Our primary concern is to increase the professionalism of the sector.

In addition to activities directly related to radio broadcasting, Kayira initiates and participates in the campaigns against:

 violations of personal and collective freedoms such as the right to protest, sit-in and other public demonstrations, the imprisonment of journalists and restriction of the press, and arbitrary arrests of locals;
 female circumcision;
 practices of exclusion and land expropriation of populations;
 the illegal and inhumane expulsion of the immigrant workers of France, Angola and elsewhere;
 the criminal embargo against Cuba, Iraq, Libya, etc...

The Radio does not hesitate to debate and to denounce the diversions the embezzlement of public funds and corruption.

The Kayira Network also denounced the electoral farce of parliamentary elections of 13 April 1997 and the presidential election on May 11, 1997. Network members are also activists for the Malian Association of Human Rights (AMDH).

Constraints and difficulties related to the leading line

The Kayira Radios are recognized by the people as the group of radios engaged in the defense of the poor and the oppressed. But our combat for the democracy was worth us also all kinds of repression and aggressions on behalf of the capacity in place. The list is long. For this reason illustrative, let us mention here some doings and ways in fact:

 Manipulation of national and international opinion;
 Financial asphyxiation on economic operators and other potential backers;
 Physical aggression against the radios of Bamako and Koutiala and its organizers and technicians;
 Arbitrary closing the Bamako radio on instructions from the government in February 1994 and followed some weeks later by an aggressive assault during the night by state security armed with kalachnikovs and other automatic weapons to oblige personnel to accept ‘manu militari’ an illegal search;
 Permanent scrambling of political programming;
 Sabotaging of equipment (causing more than 6 million loss) sponsored by the State Security on the eve of the presidential election on May 11, 1997, to silence the radio forever. The prosecutor of the Commune I, hearing the case, has dismissed and released outright authors who have recognized the facts.

We are slandered, vilified and demonized by the power of the Third Republic. The only ray of sunshine to the gloomy picture of our relations with the government: the grant awarded by the chief of the press which has benefited our network as well as our other colleagues. But the support of circumstances is dwarfed by the harm caused and the economic and technical difficulties deliberately created by the government.

Organization and operation

The operating mode is restrained by the undesirable constraints induced by the form of moral autonomy the association was given. The Bamako station provides leadership, training, financial support, consulting and the provision of equipment for the five other local radio stations. Each station, under the responsibility of a managing director, meets the objectives of the network, while retaining their own autonomy in programming and animation. The ARLK (Association of Free Radios Kayira) has established an administrative structure and policy. It is run by a management committee of five members. The Management Committee is the executive body with the Directorate General of the communication network. It is responsible for overseeing the activities of member stations.

The direction exerts its authority on the managing directors who direct the stations integrated into the network. The local administrations are managed by a team of five members.

The programs and their contents

In spite of the material difficulties, and in spite of frequent jamming of equipment, the six stations emit without failing on FM:

 in Bamako, Kayira broadcasts 145hours per week on 104.4MHZ
 in Ségou, Sido Kayira broadcasts 105 hours per week on 104.4MHZ
 in Koutiala, koudia kan Kayira II broadcasts 140 hours per week on 104.1MHZ
 in Koulikoro, niama kan broadcasts 105 hours per week on les104.3MHZ
 in Kita, Kayira V broadcasts 103 hours per week on 104.2MHZ
 in Mahina, Kayira VI Mali Sadio broadcasts 63 hours per week on 102.00MHZ

With Kayira, the word of the people runs on the waves, and this right to expression and the direct intervention occupies the schedule on all grounds (health, political, legal, environment, etc.). This "antenna of the people" belongs as much to the adults as with the children and the young people. The majority of the programs equally prefer this type of active participation than the standard radio programming. The subject of AIDS and sexuality does not frighten Radio Kayira. Hand in the hand with its listeners, the Radio works towards eliminating certain sexual taboos.

The nice part in tongue

Radio Kayira utilizes a merry melting linguistic pot, representative of all ethnic components in Mali according to the importance of their use. French, present but not omnipresent, is erased thus in front of the nine (9) languages, bambara (or bamaman) become as in the life by excellence, the common language :
 Bamanan 58%
 Peuhl,dogon, sonrhaï, soussou, sore, senoufo, Arabic 30%
 French 12%

The Radio as a Service for SAMU Social

The Kayira Network attaches a very large importance of the role of SAMU Social, an organization which provides social and medical care to homeless children.. It alerts the population at the time of accidents or of catastrophes (communicates the name of the victims, and the need for blood donations), it diffuses official statements of search and reunion of lost children with the help of the Radios Kayira.

Perspectives The Communication network will kayira is an information tool of civics and democracy. The mobilization of locals around the radio, the recruitment of young Malians as animators and technicians raises the issue of development, the economic viability of its structures, and their integration into the economic fabric. Ensuring a decent income for its workers, ensure their future and help farming cooperatives to increase production and productivity is the major concern of the leadership network Kayira. The question is particularly acute in a context of general economic difficulty, and particularly hostile to the communication network Kayira because of its editorial line.

The resolution of these questions indicates to us two directions for the workers of the network:

1) To control and increase the local resources through the rational and effective management, and marketing for greater solidarity of the network

2) Generation of employment and the capacity to sustain the radio broadcasts

As for the locals related to the radio, the satisfaction of their needs is essential and is articulated around:
 Service of support consulting for the acquisition of agricultural equipment and inputs.
 Research and identification of suppliers able to deliver equipment and acceptable conditions of inputs.

The resolution of this problem will make the Kayira Radios tools for economic and social development.

The Kayira Communication Network

Management

 President
 Secretary of Administration
 Secretary of Exterior Relations
 Secretary of Finances and European Relations

Operator members

 Manager
 Program Director
 Clubs President
 Maintenance Manager

General direction

 General manager
 Coordinator of the network
 Administrative and Financial Services
 Maintenance service
 Service of Development and Resources
 Programming Department