Farm Radio International open house in Tamale draws enthusiastic crowd
Farm Radio International’s country director for Ghana, Benjamin Fiafor, gives opening remarks at the Radio and ICT Communication for Development Day open house event in Tamale in November 2016.
With more than 60 attendees, Farm Radio International’s open house on November 24 in Tamale, Ghana, was a “great success,” according to event coordinator and value chain officer Ellen Opokua Acquaye.
“It was a large and good event, and the interactions were actually very fruitful,” said Ellen. “People arrived with a lot of enthusiasm, and especially with interesting questions that I wasn’t expecting.”
The main goal of the Radio and ICT Communication for Development Day was to introduce and spread the word about Farm Radio’s work in northern Ghana, as the Tamale office opened just in the spring of 2016.
Attendees included partner radio stations and institutions, businesses, government agencies, and media houses — with presentations from the German development agency (GIZ), Ghana Feed the Future Agriculture Technology Transfer (ATT) project, and Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC).
Kouadio Amavi, ICT advisor of the ATT Project, said he ended up spending four hours at the open house as opposed to the 30 minutes he planned, as a result of the many presentations and learning opportunities.
“The open house was a confirmation of how powerful radio broadcasting is,” he said. “The event will help synergize with sister or partner organizations involved in what we do as well so to team up in a bid to stop competing for time slots at the radio station level.”
Kouadio also highlighted the fruitfulness of the Q&A period, adding that it allowed him to further network and spread the word about the ATT project.
Besides an opening by Farm Radio’s Ghana country director, Benjamin Fiafor, and three presentations, the event included a tour of the office with eight individual stops explaining different aspects of Farm Radio’s work: Radio Approaches, ICT Innovations, Mock Studio, Business Room, Training, Broadcaster Resources, Quality Control, and Community Listener Groups.
“Overall, we received good feedback,” said Ellen, “with the primary goal being to spread the word about Farm Radio International. Overall people are now more curious about us and our work — they want to learn more and see more details about what exactly we do.”
Ellen said Farm Radio will use the network and connections made at the open house to seek business and collaboration opportunities on ICT tools and interactive voice response (IVR) packages and mobile information services, in addition to spreading the word about the organization more broadly in the Northern Region.
