Radio soap promotes health

The Pilika Pilika radio show offers a unique way to raise awareness in Tanzania.

Credit: WaterAid / Jim Holmes

Pilika Pilika is a radio soap modelled on the BBC radio show The Archers which transmits in Kiswahilli across Tanzania. WaterAid supports the soap and uses it to spread messages on hygiene, sanitation and water management.

Pilika Pilika, which means 'busy, busy' in English, is set in the fictional Tanzanian village of Jitazame, a kind of crossroads village that has representatives of most local cultures. Last season saw Mawazo, a key character, fall into his poorly maintained pit latrine and then have to walk hours to the river to clean up because the water pump was broken.

The soap is followed by a discussion programme that explores in detail some of the issues raised in the show through the views of rural children, farmers and a panel of experts.

Pilika Pilika goes out weekly on most of the Tanzanian radio networks and is written, produced and performed by local people in a studio on the outskirts of Arusha. The show is now in its third year of production and regularly receives letters and text messages from people whose lives have been changed by messages on the show.

The average listening figures show that Pilika Pilika reaches around three million people with each broadcast enabling WaterAid to get messages about safe hygiene practices, good management of water supplies and sanitation to a broader audience than is reached with our direct project work or by our partners in Tanzania.

WaterAid is closely consulted on scripts for the shows and is a regular provider of experts for the discussion programme which visits communities all over the country in order to gauge the views of a cross-section of the population.

Soap operas are often frowned upon in the UK as cheap space fillers but in Africa they are an essential tool for communicating important messages that can save and change the lives of people whose only link to information is often a simple radio.

The team from Pilika Pilika were trained by the BBC, several of them have even assisted with production of The Archers.

Pilika Pilika gives out important messages to rural Tanzania as well as giving a voice to people who would otherwise not be heard. The partnership between WaterAid and Pilika Pilika is a very cost effective way to engage with communities that are otherwise beyond our reach, helping to empower those most in need to find solutions to the basic challenges of daily life.