91Èȱ¬

Category: Radio 4; Africa

Date: 28.04.2005
Printable version

On Wednesday 25 May, 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 focusses on Africa with a day of programming that aims to evoke the current realities of life and the sights, sounds, issues and debates in this vast and vibrant continent.

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In a range of programmes - from current affairs to arts and documentary - A Day In Africa explores the cultural vitality and economic complexity of the continent, and sets the context for some of the important issues facing its people and their relationship with the rest of the world.

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A Day in Africa is part of a wide variety of 91Èȱ¬ programmes and initiatives about Africa this year, across services within the UK and worldwide.

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Beginning at dawn in Morocco on Africa's Mediterranean coast, and ending beyond midnight in a late-night Cape Town hang-out, this whistle-stop tour eavesdrops on conversations about money, politics, work and home life, meeting a cross-section of people who share a moment of their lives and thoughts.

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A taxman in Ghana bemoans his stressful day trying to persuade market traders to pay up; a female visitor to an internet café shows why it's become the best way for her to keep in touch with her boyfriend (despite the regular power cuts); and a barman in Zambia reveals his hopes and fears for his children.

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The Very Reverend Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and Nobel Prize winner, gives the Prayer For The Day (5.43am).

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Farming Today (5.45am) reports from Kenya, where aid agencies claim that the jobs of 20 per cent of the population - six million people - are under threat because of the actions of the EU.

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They say a combination of cheap European sugar being dumped on the country, and EU plans to lower the guaranteed price of sugar, will decimate a vital part of Kenya's economy.

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Miriam O'Reilly will be in Kenya's Rift Valley, on the shores of Lake Victoria, in the town of Kisumu - where a sugar mill was forced to close, still owing farmers £200m after cheap EU sugar was "dumped" there.

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The Thought For The Day (7.50am) is delivered by Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference Of Nigeria.

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Over the past 50 years, a huge wealth and variety of literature has been produced by writers who were born on the African continent.

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This week, Book Of The Week: On Being African (Monday to Friday at 9.45am) presents extracts from five intimate, autobiographical accounts by African writers whose early experiences have thrown up all sorts of questions about who they are and where they are really from.

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Chinua Achebe, Camara Laye, Bessie Head, Chris Van Wyk and Ekow Eshun have all grappled, in their writing, with the nature of identity in a world of shifting boundaries and conflicting countries.

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The Reverend Rogers Govender leads the Daily Service on Radio 4 Long Wave at 9.45am from Manchester's Didsbury Church, with music from the continent.

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Fostering within families - a practice which is widespread within Africa - is the focus of a special report from Ghana for Woman's Hour (10.00am), followed by a studio discussion.

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In the northern region of Ghana, almost every family has a foster child who is a relative. Traditionally, girls have been sent to live with paternal aunts to strengthen family ties. But due to increasing poverty, many girls are becoming little more than domestic slaves.

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Woman's Hour finds out what is happening to help these girls, whether fostering both here and in Africa can ever truly be regulated, and investigates how the African tradition of fostering has transferred to Britain.

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After the death of Victoria Climbie - who was sent here by her parents in a private fostering arrangement - the Government pledged to reform such practices.

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As the new regulations come into effect, Jenni Murray and guests discuss whether it is possible to nurture the positive aspects of African fostering, whilst safeguarding children.

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The programme also reports on a new school of pharmacy being established in Malawi by Manchester University.

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Radio 4 shares in a World Service perspective on African current affairs through an edition of its daily broadcast Network Africa (3.00pm).

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In the past decade, a media revolution in Africa and rapid liberalisation of the press have dramatically changed the way Africans view the world: their thinking, behaviour and expectations.

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In Africa's Fourth Estate (daily from Monday to Friday at 3.45pm), Tanzanian journalist Adam Lusekelo meets some of the movers and shakers in the continent's communications revolution, and asks how they are changing perceptions in a post 9/11 world.

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Urunana is a radio soap in Rwanda, modelled on the Archers.

In a country where 11 per cent of the population is HIV positive, the programme tackles taboo issues of sexual health and works to build reconciliation after the genocide of 1994. Then, radio was used to whip up hatred. Now, Urunana's enormous popularity has restored the nation's respect for the medium.

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Adam meets Soli Philander, a well known Cape Town comedian and personality, whose new reality TV show Lets Fix It is attempting to tackle post-Apartheid problems and change attitudes about what South Africans can do to help themselves.

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In Thinking Allowed (4.00pm) Professor Robin Cohen, former Dean of Humanities at the University of Cape Town and later Visiting Professor, and now Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, talks about the university-wide changes that have taken place since the end of Apartheid and in what ways it has affected students and changed student life.

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Jonathan Dimbleby chairs a special edition of Any Questions? (8.00pm), hosted by the Royal African Society at London University's School Of Oriental and African Studies; the panel of leading commentators will respond to questions from the audience about the most urgent political, economic and social issues facing the continent today.

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The day reaches its climax at 11.00pm, with a half hour feature, Café Africa, which brings together the sounds, music and voices from Tangiers to Table Mountain that have been heard throughout the day.