Radio Terra FM has trained 48 field agents to set up community radio listeners’ clubs across Mahagi Territory, turning broadcasts into grassroots action for land rights, climate-smart agriculture, conservation, public health, and community participation.
The day began, as most gatherings here do, with a prayer. By 9:20 a.m. on July 3, 2026, forty-eight Radio Terra FM field agents had arrived in Kolokoto, near Mahagi Port in Wagungu Chiefdom. Some had traveled long distances from the Plaine Alur, Djumalu, and Mukambu axes of Mahagi Territory.
They came for a single day of training with an ambitious purpose. They would learn how to create and run community radio listeners’ clubs. Through these clubs, Radio Terra intends to turn its broadcasts into organized local action across the Lendu Plateau and the wider Albertine region.
Radio Terra organized the meeting with support from Environmental Defenders (ED). It trained the station’s community relays on the role of radio in community development. It also covered how radio can support farmers defending natural resources and livelihood rights in Ituri Province. When the meeting closed at 6:30 p.m., each agent left with a radio receiver and a plan to launch a listeners’ club in their own village from August 2026.
Why radio still reaches rural Congo
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, radio reaches local communities better than any other medium, especially in rural areas. Audience studies show that radio holds over 62 percent of the national audience, rising to 78 to 85 percent in rural provinces. In places like Mahagi Territory, roads are poor and there is no grid electricity. Newspapers rarely arrive, and few people have internet access. As a result, the radio is often the only reliable link between a farming household and the wider world.
However, the Radio Terra team has learned that broadcasting alone is not enough. Poverty here is not only a lack of money, food, or shelter. It is also a lack of information. A farmer may not know that improved seeds exist, that a market across the lake pays more, that the law protects her land, or that a village rumor is false. That gap deepens every other form of hardship.
Across the Lake Albert region, most households depend on rain-fed farming, and most rural land is undocumented and vulnerable to grabbing. In this context, access to trusted information can make the difference between resilience and destitution.
How community radio listeners’ clubs work
Listeners’ clubs are designed to close that gap. A club is a group of 20 to 50 community members who meet regularly to listen to educational programs. Together, they debate what they heard and decide how to put the lessons into practice. Members then send their questions, critiques, and stories back to the station. In this way, radio becomes a real community dialogue rather than a one-way channel.
The model has deep roots in rural Africa. It first emerged in the DRC and Niger and has repeatedly helped end the isolation of remote communities. Similar initiatives across the continent show what is possible: farmers adopting better practices, higher yields and incomes, communities setting their own conservation rules, and thousands of hectares of forest protected.
During the training, Samuel Jaryekonga Warom, Communications Director at Environmental Defenders, who also guides programming at Radio Terra, explained the idea.
“A listeners club engages in active and systematic listening. This goes far beyond simple, passive listening. Within the club, members debate the themes we broadcast so they can collectively put the lessons into practice. Radio Terra aims to transform the information it broadcasts into tangible social change.” — Samuel Jaryekonga Warom, Communications Director, Environmental Defenders
Warom was candid about why this matters so much in Mahagi. Women here face marked exclusion and often carry the burden of unpaid domestic work. Their access to information is limited and often filtered through men. Young people, the majority of the population, lack platforms to voice their concerns. Moreover, in a province where rumors have repeatedly fueled conflict, the clubs are meant as a “strategic shield.” They offer a trusted source of verified information and a safe space for dialogue.
Radio Terra FM’s mission
Uguti Upar Justin, Station Director of Radio Terra FM, opened the main sessions by explaining the station’s identity. Radio Terra launched officially seven years ago and added a relay antenna on Daa-Blue Mountain in November 2023.
Its editorial charter rests on five pillars. They are environmental protection, including tackling the impacts of mining and climate disruption; disease prevention; gender equity, peace, and ending violence; youth empowerment; and the value and dignity of work. Through programs such as Kilimo, its flagship farming show, the station promotes food self-sufficiency, land rights, environmental protection, and respect for local customs.
The director then walked participants through the steps of building a club: community mobilization, formal creation, regular listening sessions, and ongoing follow-up. In turn, participants pressed management on field realities. Agents Gaspard and Upenji Ng’om Udokokwar asked the station and its partners to guarantee ongoing logistical and technical support. Otherwise, they warned, new clubs might fade after an enthusiastic start. The station agreed that this is central to the model’s success.
Facilitation skills and an Ebola alert
Facilitation skills received equal attention. Efitia Jeanne, a community animator from the Nyarambe rural health zone, trained the agents to lead inclusive meetings built on listening, respectful debate, summarizing, and collective decisions.
She also raised the alarm about a more immediate threat. With the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola spreading in the DRC, she urged strict respect for barrier measures. In particular, she stressed the ban on moving bodies from affected areas into healthy zones. Since the outbreak began, Radio Terra’s producers and journalists have worked in the studio daily, producing health messages for farming communities across the affected region.
Linking listeners’ clubs to the station
The final sessions covered how clubs will connect with the station. Topics included rapid feedback of community voices, broadcasts produced directly in villages, street interviews, and community-written radio drama. They also covered the registers, logbooks, and monthly reports that will let the station track each club’s progress.
According to Sarah Lonyo, Senior Program Officer at Environmental Defenders, each club will submit a monthly report summarizing listeners’ feedback. Community sensitization will run through July, and the formal creation of clubs across the three axes will begin in early August 2026.
Closing the gender gap in access to information
Of the 48 agents trained, four were women. The station is frank about that imbalance and views the clubs themselves as one of the tools for correcting it by guaranteeing women equitable access to information and strengthening their participation in public and political life at the village level.
A station anchored in peasants’ and Indigenous rights
Radio Terra broadcasts on 95.0 and 97.0 FM and a digital channel, linking both sides of Lake Albert in Uganda and the DRC. It is a nonprofit, independent station affiliated with Environmental Defenders, and international law anchors its mandate.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants affirms the right of rural people to seek, receive, and share information and to use the natural resources of their communities sustainably. Likewise, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms Indigenous Peoples’ right to establish their own media in their own languages. Radio Terra exists to make those rights real on the Lendu Plateau.
The station broadcasts 18 hours a day in the region’s languages, including Swahili, Lingala, French, Alur, Runyoro, Lugungu, Kilendu, and English. It reaches listeners across the DRC and Uganda. Recent listener surveys by the program teams also point to audiences in South Sudan and Rwanda.
Its programs cover climate-smart agriculture, natural resource management, land rights, community and maternal health, youth development, and women’s rights. In addition, a production studio creates songs, jingles, scripts, and dramas with community input and shares them with other stations. Together with more than 5,000 club members already active, the station’s agents help millions of rural households turn broadcasts into better harvests, safer health practices, and stronger land claims.
The station also gives voice to people pushed to the margins by conflict and extraction. They include communities evicted from their lands without fair compensation, for mining or conservation projects, and denied their right to free, prior, and informed consent. Radio Terra identifies environmental and human rights defenders by what they do. They are farmers without land deeds, fisherwomen, teachers in remote villages, and Indigenous leaders defending ancestral land. Many become defenders out of necessity rather than choice.
Broadcasting without grid power
None of this is easy. There is no grid electricity where Radio Terra broadcasts, so staying on air 18 hours a day in a remote borderland takes constant improvisation. The station runs on solar power and generators, and the hot, dusty conditions shorten their life. Temperatures above 40°C for much of the year overheat equipment, and fine dust gets into everything. Moreover, spare parts are hard to find, and poor-quality fuel wears out the generators.
The human infrastructure is just as fragile. There are few broadcast or electrical engineers in the region, and the station has no on-site engineer. Instead, it relies on remote support and visits from Arua, Kampala, Nairobi, and the United States. When critical equipment fails, the station can be off air for days, cutting millions of listeners off from news, health alerts, and farming programs.
Researchers have documented the same challenges at remote community stations across East Africa and the Sudans. Solar dependence, harsh climates, and a lack of nearby technicians are among the biggest threats to staying on air. Radio Terra’s answer has been to train its own team in maintenance and repair, so the signal stays alive.
“The strength and continuity of Radio Terra’s non-stop broadcasting rely heavily on the courage and dedication of our teams on the ground.” — Uguti Upar Justin, Station Director, Radio Terra FM
With these closing words, he thanked the agents for their commitment and sent them home to begin the work.
What comes next for the community radio listeners’ clubs
The agents are now back in their communities across the Plaine Alur, Djumalu, and Mukambu axes, with radio receivers, training notes, and a schedule. Sensitization meetings run through July, and budgets will be reviewed at the station’s monthly meeting. In early August, the first clubs will be formally created, each with 20 to 50 members. Each will be a small assembly where a farmer can ask a question, a woman can speak without her words being filtered, a young person can be heard, and a village can decide together what to do next.
In a region where information often arrives as rumor, and where those who depend most on the land have had the least say in its future, community radio offers a way forward. Radio Terra and Environmental Defenders invite partners, donors, and fellow media organizations to help sustain and expand this work across the Albertine region and the Congo Basin.
Learn more about our community media program.
