Ejo Bite: Youth Radio for 
Rwanda and Burundi

"Ejo Bite?" -- which literally means "How about the future?" -- broadcasts news, feature stories and radio dramas that are produced by young Rwandan and Burundians, including refugees in the camps in the Great Lakes Region in the local languages Kirundi and Kinyarwanda. The refugees are truly the most marginalized of the regions population, and involving them in the broadcast is truly giving Voice to the Voiceless.

The project is an attempt to address the issues important to the young generation of Burundians and Rwandan who have to deal with the legacy of civil war and genocide respectively. Long involved with broadcasting to Central Africa, Gregory Pirio campaigned for youth programming out of a realization that the youth in Central Africa felt betrayed by the older generation, and this crisis of authority presented a unique opportunity to empower young people by getting them to articulate their fears, hopes and concerns. Such a program would also give adults the rare opportunity to listen to the concerns of their children, and in so doing, perhaps help heal the generational wounds. That Ejo Bite is having an impact is indisputable. It had been reported that Burundi comes to a standstill as the population listens to weekly show.

The show is created and hosted entirely by teenagers under adult supervision. Through the project, young people were taught journalism techniques so they could conduct interviews and prepare weekly programs that have special interest for the youth of their region. The programs are assembled by VOA in Washington and then broadcast back to the region. The project has received generous support from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees. With additional support from the Vodaphone Foundation and the Freeplay Foundation, special wind-up radios were distributed to youth in refugee camps to maximize the project’s impact.