‘It’s related to our customs’

Q&A with Daniel Nkashama

Radio Host at Radio Okapi, Democratic Republic of the Congo

At Radio Okapi, Daniel Nkashama hosts a live talk show in which he invites guests to share their ideas, expertise and opinions on a variety of topics. He has been working to include more women guests in his program.

Reflect Reality: Can you tell us about your radio program and effort to include more women?

Nkashama:  The aim of the program is to give useful information to listeners to help them improve their daily lives. We are talking about health and education, and about the environment and so on. I’ve been running this program for more than 10 years.

It’s not easy to get women involved. Most of the people who are calling in are men and there are a few women. We may have just 1 or 2 women calling. It’s related to our customs, in which women are not allowed to speak whereas men are. We are working hard to convince them that you can also come and share your experience or knowledge.

I think that if we can include more women’s voices, it will obviously increase our radio audience.

[In one case] we had a woman working for an environmental NGO. She came on to explain how you can run an NGO; how to prepare your budget or to prepare your activities for a year. After the program she started receiving a lot of phone calls from around the country. People wanted to know more.

RR: What strategies have worked to incorporate more women into the show?

Nkashama: I think that the best way is to go and meet them where they are, in their offices or their homes, to talk with them to put them in your confidence. With men it is easy, you can just call two or three days before and ask them to be a guest. It can all be arranged by phone. But for women it’s different. There are some women who will agree to participate just after we call, but most hesitate, so you must go meet them and explain what you want from them. I think they are a little bit afraid of media. You need to explain what you want to do, your motivation, and that you are promoting them and promoting what they are doing. Let them know they are doing well, so you want to share their experience and knowledge with other people.

Another piece of advice I have is to create a kind of diary of phone numbers for women experts in different areas that you can call on frequently to ask them to come to the program to be a guest.