Feba’s ministry to the Yawo people in and around the country of Malawi has been filled with drama …unexpected death, FM licence denied, burglary of the studio and recent eviction from the property. Thankfully God can bring all things (even crisis) together for good – the production of Feba’s programmes to the Yawo is moving closer to listeners.
Burglary, eviction, temporary studio
For the last several years, the Yawo short wave programmes have been produced in a studio constructed out of a shipping container, parked on a leased piece of property in Blantyre and serving the broadcasts nicely. “Back in December 2009, this situation started to change,” explains Bob Bartz, Development Director. “An attempted burglary resulted in loss of equipment. Fortunately, the burglars were scared off and left most of the studio gear behind. Shortly after that incident, the Yawo Project Coordinator [Anton Meyer] received a letter from the landlord terminating the lease agreement for the container to remain on her property. She has been planning some development work to transform the lot into a housing complex. That meant the container would have to be removed within two months, given the terms of the eviction notice.”
“So in February we removed all the studio equipment from the container studio, and reinstalled it in a temporary office across town,” says Graham Kimber, Feba’s Development Engineer for Africa. “Recordings are currently being made from that office. It's not a very comfortable office, so I'm sure the producers will be keen to get out of there as soon as they can.”
FM radio to Yawo in Malawi
Meanwhile 200km north of Blantyre Feba has been partnering with TWR in the construction of a community FM station in Malawi for the Yawo. This project has been struggling to start its broadcasts for a variety of reasons. Many of you have followed its progress from building construction in 2008 and appointment of Buks van der Merwe as FM station manager to a flash flood in the studio buildings in November 2008 just before test broadcasts were due to start in December.
By January 2009 another complication came up; differences in the way the broadcast licence conditions were interpreted by MACRA, the licensing authority in Malawi, and the project partners. By April though the FM station in Malawi was still awaiting its broadcasting licence, Feba staff were actively preparing for FM programming by training producers for the transition from short wave programming to FM, with the plan to have them aired on the TWR Network in Malawi. While not ideal (TWR broadcasts in Chewa and English), it provided an interim step while waiting for Feba’s community FM radio licence. In September we received the news of the sudden passing away of Buks, leaving the project without a local champion to lead the station and launch it within the Yawo community.
Future of broadcasts to the Yawo
Today in 2010 the Yawo broadcast schedule includes a 15-minute daily block on short wave as well as a 30-minute daily broadcast on TWR’s Malawi FM network. For several years Amos has been Feba’s lone producer in the container studio in Blantyre and this year he’s been training another native Malawian, Richard, as a new producer/presenter. “Several of us met together with Amos to discuss where the best home for the Yawo production facility would be,” says Bob. “We spent some time reviewing our options, including the response we’ve been receiving from the broadcasts. We noticed over the past four years, more and more responses have been coming from the region around the southern part of Lake Malawi, the heart of where the Yawo live.”
A decision was made to locate the Yawo permanent recording facilities (short wave and FM programming) from Blantyre to the area 200 km north into Feba’s FM Malawi studio sometime this summer. This is a strategic move to encourage more interaction with the listeners, and this minimizes the need for the container studio, so we will be looking at alternative uses for it with another project.
Passing the baton of leadership
The Yawo ministry is undergoing a significant leadership change, as Anton is retiring this month. Amos has been tapped to take on a broader leadership role in the Yawo work and Richard will take on more production, with both of them on-site at FM Malawi to develop more community broadcasting. We’ve been encouraged with evidence that God is indeed at work among the Yawo through Feba’s broadcasts. Responses to our FM programmes on the TWR network programming in Malawi are already greater than the response to the ones on short wave.
However this listener reminds us why we are still broadcasting on both: “Your programmes are just fantastic to me for they have picked me from the middle of doubts and brought me to Jesus who is now my Saviour – all because of Feba radio. It is my prayers that this radio station should continue its broadcasts for many are those who have not yet received Jesus. Since in our area there are no FM frequencies available. The only frequency we have is short wave. We urge you to keep up your very good work you have started.”