ACP-JOURNAL / PILOT-PROGRAM 001


TO BE OLD IN AFRICA


MUSIC: Hugh Masekela

KJS:
"Bridging the Gap "

MUSIC: Hugh Masekela

KJS:
A multimedia-project of Radio Bremen with partners in Africa and in Europe

MUSIC: Hugh Masekela

KJS:
My name is Klaus Jürgen Schmidt. I lived in Africa for 16 years, and I invite you to join me once a week in a virtual travel to people on this continent. We are going to take a short cut through the Internet. Almost everything on this radio program has been found on Internet, and - if you want - you may continue your own travel to Africa, reading, listening, watching. For this purpose, we have prepared a website. This is the place where you can involve yourself, mailing us questions but also sending us souvenirs from your personal travel: stories and music from Africa discovered on the worldwide web.

MUSIC: Hugh Masekela

KJS:
I found this piece of African music on a website offering jazz from around the world, the address is a bit complicated, but don’t worry, at the end of today’s travel I shall announce a simple one which will allow access to all other web-addresses which we are going to visit today.

Hugh Masekela, the trumpet-man from Africa. He was born in 1939 near Johannesburg. Already in an early age, his music was meant to fight apartheid. As a result, he was forced into exile, and there in the United States of America, it was Harry Belafonte who urged him to return home to South Africa. "Smooth Africa" is the title of this CD, with this piece by and with Hugh Masekela, found on Internet.

MUSIC: Hugh Masekela

KJS:
‘Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I’m 64?’ This line from a Beatles-song is touching a fear which seems to be not so much concerned with death but with our worries to loose love and respect once we are old.
In China, a daily greeting goes like this: "Grow 100 years of age" which is expressing the longing for a satisfying life.
However, in less than 50 years rich and poor countries alike will be populated by a majority of old people. Increasing life expectancy and shrinking birth rates are reasons for it. And, this trend is picking up very fast in the developing world; old people there are already the poorest of the population.

Young journalists in Zimbabwe, a country in southern Africa, receive a training which helps them to tell authentic stories from within their own cultures to a worldwide audience. Such training is provided by Radio Bridge Overseas, a media organisation where I helped to bring together African colleagues with young journalists from Europe. As a result of this internship program, African audio stories are now available in several language versions, for radio and for Internet.
George Msumba of Radio Bridge Overseas worked with Mathias Wevelsiep, Beate Schallenberg, Jörg Kruse und Michael Hesse from Germany. They travelled through Zimbabwe in search for stories about old people…

INSERT / RADIO BRIDGE OVERSEAS
Feature 1: Old Malawian Immigrants in Zimbabwe


MUSIC: Stella Chiweshe

KJS:
Stella Chiweshe - "The Queen of Zimbabwean Mbira".
Mbira, this is an instrument with little metal tongues which you snip with your fingers in a calabash, this is a dried pumpkin.
It was in 1963 when Stella Chiweshe begun to learn this way of making music from an uncle of her mother. And, she faced immediately some problems because, traditionally, the Mbira-music is connected to spiritual ceremonies which are the domain of men. Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 was somehow of help, since then Stella Chiweshe is an international star, but her play, even during public concerts, remains as a spiritual seance. Together with her husband, she lives now in Germany.

MUSIC: Stella Chiweshe

INSERT / RADIO BRIDGE OVERSEAS
Feature 2: An old peoples’ home in Zimbabwe


MUSIC: The African Rhythm Messengers

KJS:
Afro-Beat, another finding on Internet. The African Rhythm Messengers with their new CD "BOTTOM BELLÉ", combining different styles of West African dance hall music.

MUSIC: The African Rhythm Messengers

KJS:
Liberia in West Africa is a state which was founded in 1847 by former black slaves from America who took the constitution of the U.S.A. as a model.
In December 2000, the US-state-office published, on Internet, a still valid warning for American citizens not to travel to Liberia. The situation there remains insecure since a military uprising in 1980; activities of rebels did cause refugee problems within the border areas of Northwest Liberia and of the neighbouring countries Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Typical Africa, you may think. However, it is this country Liberia where the Internet-Radioservice "Inter World Radio" found a successful project for old people. On the Internet from Monrovia: Sam Howard.

INSERT / INTER WORLD RADIO
Feature 3: How old people in Liberia get a chance to read and to write

MUSIC: The Beating Heart of Africa

KJS:
"The Beating Heart of Africa", as presented on Internet from a new CD-collection of New Life Records.
All Links on Internet with regard to today’s travel to Africa, and with offers to participate in programming, can be found at:
www.radiobridge.net/links/multimedia.html
You are listening to a production of Radio Bremen with partners in Africa and in Europe.
I am Klaus Jürgen Schmidt, and I invite you to join me in the next virtual travel to Africa - next week, at the same time.

MUSIC: The Beating Heart of Africa

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