Radio is making a difference in very practical ways in many villages throughout Nepal. Thanks to you who participated in the save a life, send a radio campaign that finished in December. Because of the money raised through send a radio, the teams at Aafno FM in Dadeldhura and Okhaldunga, Nepal, have been distributing hundreds of radios as part of their radio ministry throughout 2011.

From Aafno FM listeners…

• “Aafno FM is our own FM and we love it.”
• “Thanks to the Aafno FM’s health programme. Thanks to Binu sister.”
• “I always listen to the morning devotion programme and I learned many things about the Gospel.”
• “I request to increase the time of songs and stories.”
• “The Samanata (gender equal, education equal) programme is good; we have learnt many things on equality.”
• “I have learned many new things through Aafno radio’s agriculture programme.”

Journey to Okhaldunga
Project Coordinator Vijay, based in Kathmandu, works closely with the local teams at the two Aafno FM community radio stations. He travels to visit them from time to time for training and support. Over the last few months he’s joined them to meet listeners in villages across the districts. Here’s an excerpt of his reports from a recent trip:

8 June
“Just for your information. I have not yet been to Okhaldunga due to Nepal's political crisis; the roads were closed for some time. I bought 100 radios and just sent them with solar panels, batteries and repaired generator to Okhaldunga by transport, which will arrive only on Friday and I will be there on same date.”

12 June
“My trip to Okhaldunga was very special. The road by bus from Kathmandu to Nepaltar (about 60 km) is paved and good but after that is just hilly and narrow bends. Due to the rain there were landslides in some places. At one place the road was closed due to a bus from the opposite direction was stopped, and there was no place for two vehicles. The road to Ghurmi is on the bank of the Sunkoshi River. We could enjoy the beauty of nature, but also were scared due to the dangerous road. So we could say that it is dangerously beautiful!! Just to go 200 km took almost 11 hours. I had to cross the Sunkoshi River through the suspension bridge and walk about 35 minutes with my luggage to the next bus from Ghurmi to Okhaldunga. The bus (built for 30 passengers) had over 70. I had to stand inside the bus; over 20 were on the roof with their heavy goods (carpet, rice sacks, buckets, luggage). During my travel I experienced that the Lord is travelling with me.

“Our brother Robin, Binu and Dhanu are doing very well. Yesterday we went to distribute radios. On the way we met some youths returning from the bazar. They were our radio fans. We had a great time with our listeners. We enjoyed a lot planting rice in the field, taking interviews, eating khaja together. Later on we had boiled potatoes, tea and drinking yogurt. We enjoyed it, proving that community radio is making your shoes dirty! By the way, the solar panels and batteries arrived here. We will be installing them from tomorrow or the day after.”

16 June
“We have just finished the installation of the solar panels. We believe that they will work well. We had a good time of fellowship with listeners during the radio distribution. We got many feedbacks from school teachers regarding the educational programme and from farmers regarding the agriculture programme. Many students knew about our radio too.”