Tag archive for: Radio

Successful training for radio technicians at Médias Ebène in Lomé

The Forum of Christian Media in Francophone Africa (FOMECAF) has just successfully concluded a series of training sessions led by two renowned experts, Christian Gaspoz and Denis Steffen, sent by the Ebène Media Association. These training sessions, which took place from May 7 to 9, 2024, at the HEST premises in Lomé, brought together sixty-nine (69) Christian media professionals from a dozen Christian, state, and even commercial radio stations in Togo.

Christian Gaspoz, an experienced radio engineer, led a workshop on transmitter maintenance methodology, bringing joy, success, and relief to the participants. Despite initial challenges related to varying levels of knowledge, Gaspoz captivated the audience with his dynamic teaching approach. Participants gained a thorough understanding of technical vocabulary and were introduced to the recognition of different functional modules of FM transmitters. In addition, Gaspoz expressed his gratitude for identifying participants with prior experience, paving the way for future collaboration on continuing distance learning.

For his part, Denis Steffen shared his expertise during a workshop focused on the use of digital tools in Christian broadcasting. Over three days, participants were immersed in the fundamentals of Christian communication, incorporating the latest technological advances available in sub-Saharan Africa. Topics ranging from program scheduling to the use of artificial intelligence were covered, giving participants a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities in today's media landscape.

The conclusion of the training was marked by the dedication of Denis Steffen's book, "Christian Radio: A Manual for Building in the Digital Sphere," as well as the presentation of certificates to participants. A WhatsApp group was also created to facilitate the sharing of resources and maintain the network of contacts established during the event.

“I remain convinced that the future will reveal the changes brought about by these three days,” said Denis Steffen, reflecting the optimism shared by all participants regarding the lasting impact of this training.

FOMECAF thus continues to play a crucial role in capacity building and professional development for Christian media actors in Africa.

TVT Togolese television news

About the Ebène Media Association

In a spirit of solidarity and shared vision for the future of Christian media in French-speaking Africa, two pioneering associations, Radio Réveil France and Radios Ébène Développement, have merged to form a new entity: Médias Ébène. This strategic union, made official in March 2024, marks a decisive turning point in the development and training of media in French-speaking Africa.

On March 16, 2024, the French association "Radio Réveil," known for its radio content creation, broadcasting, and training programs, adopted new statutes and a new name. A week later, on March 23, "Radios Ébène Développement," which specializes in providing technical equipment and support to radio stations, voted to dissolve and transfer its assets and projects to "Médias Ébène."

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Togo: "Religious media have an important role to play in educating young people," according to a representative of the Ministry of Communication

"We have high expectations of religious media in the education of young people," said Franck Missité, chief of staff to Togo's Minister of Communication and Media. He was speaking on Monday, November 22, at the opening of the fourth edition of the Lomé meetings, organized by FOMECAF (Forum of Christian Media in French-speaking Africa).

Religious media reaching out to all citizens

"Religious media should reach out more to all citizens with topics that are not 100 percent religious," added the trained journalist. "It's important to vary the content. 75 percent prayer and preaching is enough. 25 percent culture and ethical and moral education would be good!"

This edition of the Lomé meetings will address the theme "Media & Generational Divide" with Abdoulaye Sangho, Director of Transworld Radio West and Central Africa (TWR), as the keynote speaker. Around fifty representatives of Christian media outlets from French-speaking Africa, Cameroon, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ivory Coast, DRC, Rwanda, and elsewhere have traveled to attend the week-long training session. In addition, around a hundred people have registered to follow the event online.

"Media, make room for young people!"

"64 percent of the population of West Africa is under the age of 24," said Emmanuel Ziehli, president of Radio Réveil France, "and our media do not speak the language of young people. What's more, we don't cover topics that interest them. Let's be models of generational transition," he insisted. As a result, he asked radio executives to make room for younger people in their programming and among their journalists and presenters.

Emmanuel Ziehli also cited CICERI, the International Christian Center for Study, Research, and Information in Lomé, as an example of dynamism. Thanks to a team of young people between the ages of 18 and 30, CICERI organizes the Lomé seminars each year with complete transparency.

In addition to Abdoulaye Sangho, keynote speaker, Juliette Kpessou, host at Radio Hosanna in Benin, Olivia Adiko, editor-in-chief of Radio La voix de l'espérance in Abidjan, Etienne Kiemdé, director of Radio Evangile et développement in Burkina Faso, Illia Djadi, head of African relations at the NGO Portes Ouvertes, and Alphonse Teyabé, media consultant in Cameroon, will also speak.

Meetings launched by Radio Réveil

The "Lomé" meetings began in January 2019. They offer Christian media professionals from French-speaking Africa the opportunity to receive a week of training and to network in order to develop a dynamic of exchange between professionals from different countries.

In January 2019, Radio Réveil en Suisse, an association that produces radio programs for the entire French-speaking world, decided to mark its 70th anniversary by inviting its radio partners in Africa to a training session in Lomé. Around 100 people took part in the event and signed the Lomé Declaration of Lomé. The signatories pledged to renounce competition between evangelical and Protestant radio stations and to pool resources to improve the quality of their programs. (c)

The FOMECAF website with the Lomé 4 program.

https://medias.africa/lome4
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French-speaking Africa: from November 22 to 26, Lomé 4 will focus on the theme "Youth and the Media."

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Press release

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, FOMECAF officials have decided to organize a fourth edition of the Lomé meetings from November 22 to 26, 2021. They will focus on the theme "Youth and Media" and will welcome Dr. Abdoulaye Sangho, Director of TWR Africa, as their main guest. The event will be broadcast publicly on the web, but the number of participants attending in person will be limited to around 50.

Registration open for the Lomé 4 seminar

The fourth annual meeting of Christian media professionals from French-speaking Africa will take place from November 22 to 26, 2021, in Lomé. The theme will be "Youth and Media." "We are seeing a generational divide in the French-speaking Christian world of Africa," explains Pastor Etienne Kiemdé, director of Radio Évangile Développement in Burkina Faso. An older generation no longer speaks the language, music, and means of communication of young people, 63% of whom are under 24 in West Africa!(1)" For many Christian leaders, the risk of failing to pass on the faith is now very high. "It is time to reach out to young Africans, and it is up to radio to set an example," adds Pastor Etienne Kiemdé.

Etienne Kiemdé on the left (FOMECAF) and Abdoulaye Sangho (TWR speaker in Lomé 4) flank Emmanuel Ziehli (Radio Réveil France).

Dr. Abdoulaye Sangho as keynote speaker

The keynote speaker was unanimously chosen to be Dr. Abdoulaye Sangho, director of TWR Africa, a recognized and influential specialist in the African Christian radio landscape. Dr. Abdoulaye Sangho, originally from Mali, lives and works in Côte d'Ivoire. He is the author of several books. He is also a Commander of the National Order for his contribution to the development of faith in Côte d'Ivoire.

Number of speakers recorded on video

Lomé 4 will be similar to Lomé 3. Fifty (50) carefully selected individuals will be invited to attend plenary meetings and workshops in person. These meetings will be broadcast live and recorded on the various social media channels of FOMECAF (Forum des médias chrétiens d’Afrique francophone), particularly Facebook and YouTube. For the record, around 100 people took these training courses online in 2020.

The afternoons will provide an opportunity for FOMECAF leaders to continue laying the foundations for the forum's activities and to devise a program for 2022.

Most of the speakers will be recorded on video. They will thus continue to enrich the radio/press training video library launched in 2020 by the previous edition of the Lomé meetings (2).

Despite the difficult health situation

The decision to organize Lomé 4 was made by FOMECAF leaders who met via videoconference on Friday, July 30. They assessed the health situation in West and Central Africa as well as in Europe. For the time being, travel remains very complicated and particularly expensive due to the pandemic. Despite this, the FOMECAF leadership confirmed that Lomé 4 would go ahead and reasonably postponed the organization of the national event "FOMECAF Benin" until spring 2022. The leaders of FOMECAF have given CICERI Lomé and Radio Réveil France, specifically Mr. Koffi Ahonon and Mr. Emmanuel Ziehli, the mandate to organize the event. (c)

The FOMECAF website (Forum of Christian Media in French-speaking Africa): https://medias.africa/

More information:

Africa: Pastor Étienne Kiemdé, Director of Radio Évangile Développement in Burkina Faso. Tel. + 226 70 38 81 83. Email: ekiem1[at]gmail.com. Website: https://medias.africa/

Europe: ÉEmmanuel Ziehli, Director of Radio Réveil France. Tel. +33 06 52 02 89 42. Email: emmanuel.ziehli[at]radioreveil.ch. Website: https://radio-reveil.org/

Notes:

1 See: https://www.populationpyramid.net/sources
2 See: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkEVvei_tLkEfTaJn31DTsQ/playlists

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The Lomé meetings in brief

The "Lomé" meetings began in January 2019. They offer Christian media professionals from French-speaking Africa the opportunity to receive a week of training and to network in order to develop a dynamic of exchange between professionals from different countries.

In January 2019, Radio Réveil en Suisse, an association that produces radio programs for the entire French-speaking world, decided to mark its 70th anniversary by inviting its radio partners in Africa to a training session in Lomé. Around 100 people took part in the event and signed the Declaration. of Lomé. The signatories pledged to renounce competition between evangelical and Protestant radio stations and to pool resources to improve the quality of their programs.

During the second edition of the Lomé meetings, the 170 or so participants engaged in a discussion on the theme "Let's invent integral radio!" ." They also decided to create the Forum of Christian Media in French-speaking Africa (FOMECAF) with the following founding committee members: Olivia Adiko, journalist and editor-in-chief of La Voix de l'espérance (Ivory Coast), Dr. Alphonse Teyabe, communications consultant (Cameroon), Timothée Amegan, pastor and CEO of Médiafrique (Togo), and Emmanuel Ziehli, director of Radio Réveil (Switzerland).

In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lomé 3 offered around 50 participants in person and around 100 online the opportunity to reflect on "Media convergence and job versatility."

The Lomé 1 report: https//bit.ly/lome-1 
The Lomé 2 report: https://bit.ly/lome-deux 
The Lomé 3 report: https://bit.ly/Lome3 

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Members of the FOMECAF committee

The following individuals are members of the FOMECAF core network or steering committee: Olivia Adiko Beugre(Radio la Voix de l’Espérance, Abidjan), Timothée Amegan(Médiafrique, Lomé), Etienne Kiemdé(Radio Évangile et développement, Ouagadougou), Koffi Ahonon(CICERI and Compassion Togo, Lomé), Dr.Abdoulaye Sangho(TWR, Abidjan), Dr. Alphonse Teyabe(media consultant, Yaoundé), and Emmanuel Ziehli(Radio Réveil France).

Download the press release in PDF format
Registration open for the Lomé 4 seminar
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Tribute to Alain Normand, 1939–2021

Radio personality, pastor, evangelist, film producer, musician, writer...AlainNormandpassed away on June 29, 2021, at the age of 82.

Alainwas born on May 21, 1939, in the French city of Cannes, four years after his brother Guy and four months before the start of World War II. His father was called up for military service. A prisoner of war, he returned ill from a German camp and died a few months after the end of the war.

Alainregularly accompanied his mother to an evangelical church and, at the age of twelve, he decided to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. A year later, he moved to Geneva because his mother remarried a Swiss man.

In Geneva,Alaindiscovers a new evangelical church. He obtains a Federal Certificate of Competence (FCC) in administration, discovers the guitar, and wins a championship in a junior team at Servette Football Club.

In 1958,Alainbegan theological training in England at the International Bible Training Institute. At the end of his training, he was summoned to the French Consulate in London to perform his military service in the French army. Because he was a conscientious objector, he was recruited as a paratrooper-nurse, without weapons. Trained in parachuting and nursing, he went to Algeria, which was at war, and mainly cared for soldiers. This period gave him the opportunity to experience many human and spiritual adventures. He meditated particularly on these words of Jesus: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9).

After being demobilized,Alainleft for Frankfurt. He wanted to learn German, but also to learn to love Germans in the name of Christ. There, he worked in an American bank, attended an evangelical church, and continued to study the guitar. Upon returning to Geneva, he decided to commit himself more radically to the service of God. A friend from his church said to him, "Radio Réveil in Lugano is looking for an employee. You're really cut out for it!"

Read his full biography written by Claude-Alain Baehler and published on July 4, 2021, on lafree.info.

Listen to these four short stories produced by Alain Normand, taken from the archives of the Cassette Service.

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FOMECAF two online meetings in May

Lomé, May 21, 2021,

With the aim of strengthening ties between members and continuing the training courses initiated in Lomé, FOMECAF is organizing two online meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 25 and 26, 2021.

On the agenda:

Tuesday, May 25, 2:00 p.m. GMT:

The principles of effective communication

Freely inspired by Valérie Geller's bestseller "Puissance radio" (Radio Power). Some of the points that will be covered:

  • Tell the truth (fact-checking)
  • Give the listener good reasons to listen to you.
  • Never be boring
  • Use vivid language so that the listener can visualize
  • Start with your best topic
  • Speak as if you were addressing a single listener
  • Make engaging transitions
  • Highlight your colleagues' successes
  • Be yourself on air
  • Take risks

Speaker: Denis Stephen, Director of Stephanas Conseils in Lyon

Denis entered the world of radio as co-founder of Radio Certitude in 1982 (now Phare FM Grenoble), so it's fair to say he's no novice.

After two years of audiovisual training at the University of Grenoble, he moved to Paris and was elected secretary and then president of the FRTC (Federation of Christian Radio and Television Stations). He was also a member of the board of directors of the CNRA (National Confederation of Community Radio Stations). Denis Stephen currently advises radio stations on their applications to the CSA (Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel, the French broadcasting authority) and is developing a training course entitled "Create and manage a Christian radio station," the first two lessons of which are available online.

The link to the training session will be shared in the FOMECAF WhatsApp group on Tuesday morning, May 25. If you are not a member of FOMECAF but would still like to participate in this training session, please leave your contact details here https://medias.africa/contact/ A valid email address + a phone number = a guaranteed response.

 

Wednesday, May 26, 2:00 p.m. GMT:

Full radio coverage: it's your turn to speak!

In January 2019, around 100 radio stations and media outlets in Lomé 1 realized their desire to work together http://bit.ly/lome-1 without competing with each other. On this occasion, they signed the Lomé Declaration  http://bit.ly/DeclarationLome  arguing in particular that "Christian radio programs in French-speaking Africa should be more concerned with the concrete needs of the population. The Gospel should be proclaimed in a holistic manner, in the image of Jesus Christ, who touched his contemporaries by responding to the needs of the body, soul, and spirit." That same year, these actors came together around the concept of "holistic radio" http://bit.ly/lome-deux . It is now May 2021, so what's new? During this online seminar, you will have the opportunity to share your experiences with "integral radio."

Host: Etienne Kiemdé, CEO of Radio Évangile et Développement in Ouagadougou

The debate was moderated by Pastor Etienne Kiemdé, CEO of Radio Évangile et Développement, which has eight stations based in Burkina Faso. http://red-burkina.org . He is a key figure in the Lomé seminars, a member of the FOMECAF working group, and probably, more than 20 years ago, the inventor of the concept of development adapted to radio broadcasting. At 58, this father is also a pastor, trained in Denmark, France, and England. Upon his return to the African continent, he embraced the radio ministry as a matter of urgency. Before FOMECAF, he was behind several attempts to network French-speaking Christian radio stations in Africa.

For more information: https://radio-reveil.org 

The link to the training session will be shared in the FOMECAF WhatsApp group on Tuesday morning, May 25. If you are not a member of FOMECAF but would still like to participate in this training session, please leave your contact details here https://medias.africa/contact/ A valid email address + a phone number = a guaranteed response.

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DRC: "Since Lomé 2, they've been calling me 'Papa Météo'"

From November 23 to 27, around sixty media professionals traveled to Lomé, Togo, for a week of training. During this third edition, some participants testified to the changes brought about by this new dynamic initiated by Radio Réveil (Bevaix). Here is the testimony of a radio station president from Congo Kinshasa. This written contribution is accompanied by a radio program produced byDodji Juliette Kpessou (Radio Hosanna, Porto-Novo, Benin) and Benjamin Holl (Radio Vie nouvelle, Douala, Cameroon).

His name is Johnson Kipesse. He is the president of Radio and Television Evangelical and Development Hermon in Rutshuru (RTEDH), a town in North Kivu some 70 kilometers north of Goma. This citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo participated in Lomé 2 in November 2019, a meeting organized by the Forum of Christian Media in French-speaking Africa, which addressed the theme: "Let's invent integral radio!"

Listen to the interview
Read the rest of the interview on the website lafree.info

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Ivory Coast: Lomé seminars give rise to a corporation of Christian audiovisual professionals

After Lomé 1 and 2, organized by Radio Réveil and its partners, Christian media actors in Côte d'Ivoire understood the urgency of coming together and ceasing to operate in scattered ranks. With this in mind, two presenters created the Union of Christian Journalists and Presenters of Côte d'Ivoire (UJACCI) in August 2020.

Christian media outlets in Côte d'Ivoire have long suffered from a climate of competition and a lack of collaboration between the various people working within them. The Lomé 1 and 2 seminars, organized by Radio Réveil in Lomé, Togo, in 2019, helped these media professionals understand the similarities in their challenges: radio station funding, precarious staff salaries, lack of effective evangelism strategies, etc. In light of this, Christian journalists, presenters, and broadcasters decided to set up an association that will address the various problems they face.

Read the rest of the interview on the website lafree.info

Zenabou Ndocki (Radio Bonne Nouvelle, Douala, Cameroon)

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