Community Radio in Congo Promotes Bantu-Pygmy Understanding

POKOLA, Congo -- A community radio station broadcasting from Pokola, 800 km north of the Congolese capital Brazzaville, is helping to foster understanding between the Bantu majority and the indigenous Pygmy minority.

Radio Biso na Biso (meaning 'between us" in Lingala), launched in 2008 by anthropologist Jerome Lewis and The Forest Trust, aims to smooth relations between Bantu people and autochthonous Pygmy forest-dwellers int he former French colony north of DR Congo.

Funded by Fondation Chirac, the station broadcasts in 12 dialects and promotes endangered cultures and languages.

Photo: Radio Biso na Biso aims to smooth relations between Bantu people and indigenous Pygmy forest-dwellers. Credit: Laudes Martial Mbon/IRIN

"We have programmes which promote the autochthonous people and explain the public benefit of bringing Bantus and Pygmies together," director Lydia Koungou told IRIN.

"The conflict has virtually disappeared... Today there are Bantus who live in the same neighbourhoods as the indigenes," noted she.

"The indigenous people are Congolese like us. If we distance ourselves from them, what example are we giving to those who follow us abroad," she added.

The radio employs about 10 staff - six Bantus and four Pygmies - who broadcast in their own languages.

"Thanks to the radio, I have become someone. I speak into the same microphone, I operate the same mixing console as the Bantus," said Gaston Dambo (39), adding:

"In my broadcasts, I ask parents to take their children to school so they will be useful to society tomorrow. I also make appeals related to the conservation of our sacred sites."

Biso na Biso broadcasts to about 50.000 people within a 100 km radius, covering the departments of Sangha (northeast) and Likouala (extreme north).

"Biso na Biso is the voice of the forest. This is where the native is: this station teaches him the virtues and value of his traditions," mayor of Pokola Disso Bakonga told IRIN.