Sauti Yangu (My Voice) is the powerful radio show that engage citizens, amplify their voices and hold government accountable for solving water crisis in rural Tanzania. One of our radio program led the government allocate the fund 500 million US Dollar to solve water crisis in the village of Mswaha in Tanga region. The government project will also benefit other 600,000 villagers from districts of Pangani, Muheza and Handeni. We believe safe water and sanitation is the human right.
According to WHO/UNICEF, only 57% of Tanzania's 57 million population have access to basic water services, while only 25% have access to safely managed sanitation. In rural communities, water shortages are acute. This forces people - particularly women - to spend a significant amount of time traveling long distances in search of water. These journeys can be life-threatening. We heard several stories of people being crippled or killed by crocodiles when collecting water from unprotected rivers.
We will use local radios in Tanzania to engage citizens, amplify their voices, and hold government accountable for solving water crisis in rural areas by establishing a radio program named Sauti Yangu (My voice). Sauti Yangu will looking of a powerful, personal stories about how communities are affected by water access issues. We visit villagers who walk up to 5-10 kilometers to access water that was often dirty, diseased, or dangerous to access because government water sources were broken.
One of our story aired by the Voice of Africa radio led the government allocate the fund 500 million USD to solve water crisis in the village of Mswaha where we produced the radio show. Now the project will not only benefit the people of Mswaha, but also other 600,000 villagers from districts of Pangani, Muheza and Handeni, and this is the biggest long term impact we have just archived. Another impact is to have a pool of active citizens who hold government accountable when it come challenges.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
