Ejo Bite? How About the Future? - Tanzania

Twelve years of bloody civil war in Burundi, which ended in 2006, forced over half a million Burundians to flee to refugee camps on the Tanzania/Congo frontier and across the border into Tanzania.

In the Nduta refugee camp in April 2003, Devotte Hafashimana became the world's first recipient of a Lifeline radio.  She was the leader of one of the youth groups able to listen to the Voice of America (VOA) programme Ejo Bite?  which means How about the future? in English. Young people produced Ejo Bite? for their peers, in the two main languages of the young refugees - Kirundi and Kinyarwanda. The programme reflected their lives, their concerns and their interests.  For children who had to leave their country, their schools and everything behind them, radio provided them with valuable information to help them cope. VOA’s Ejo Bite? facilitated youth discussions around issues such as peace and reconciliation, violence against youth, the importance of open communication and AIDS prevention.

UNHCR and their implementing partners distributed 500 Lifeline radios in Nduta and in two other camps. The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the United States Department of State funded the VOA Central Africa project. In 2004, VOA provided funding for an additional 1,820 radios which were distributed in the camps in 2005.  Additional Lifeline radios were distributed to youth living in Rwanda and Burundi by VOA field personnel.