Major Projects

CR-CYW-COVID-19 (Community Radio facilitating Children's & Youth Wellbeing Amid COVID-19)

The CR-CYW-COVID-19 project, in partnership with UNICEF, is an emergency response initiative to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It involves the application of participatory community radio approaches with social distancing for key stakeholders to respond to and prevent COVID-19. 

The overall aim of CR-CYW-COVID-19 is to ensure that communities have knowledge, and are empowered to prevent and respond, to COVID 19 in their communities. 

CR-SDGs (Community Radio facilitating the realization of the SDGs)

The  CR-SDGs  project – “Community Radio facilitating the realization of the SDGs” – directly addresses the SDGs.

CR-SDGs is a partnership project of GCRN and Crossing Borders (Denmark), with funding from CISU (“Civil Society in Development”,  an association of Danish CSOs).

In line with SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), the aim of CR-SDGs  is for Community Radio and the Right to Communicate through the air waves, especially of disadvantaged communities, to be recognized, validated and maximized as necessary and indispensable to the SDGs.

In particular, CR-SDGs seeks to enable the communities served by GCRN-member stations, especially those most disadvantaged among them,  to:

  • Ground and prioritize the SDGs according to their lived experience and aspirations and,
  • Using this enhanced understanding of the SDGs:
  • Assess the performance of and elicit greater responsiveness from duty-bearers at local government level,
  • Inform their respective votes in the MMDA (local government) Elections and MMDA Referendum in December 2019 and track their outcomes.

These objectives are being achieved by 21 GCRN member stations through the broadcast of participatory programmes and community engagement activities around three major themes: the SDGs, the MMDA Elections & the SDGs, and the MMDA Referendum & the SDGs.

Educational Information Jingles – dubbed “InfoJingles” by GCRN – have also been developed around the three themes, translated by the CRSs, and are currently being broadcast in their various local languages.

A CR-SDGs broadcast series, centered around the three themes and which incorporate community engagement activities, has also been developed and is being broadcast by the 21 stations.

Alongside these activities, GCRN together with its member stations is advocating for Community Radio and the Right to Communicate –  more specifically, for the arbitrary restriction of Community Radio stations to a 5-km broadcasting radius, imposed by the National Communications Authority, to be removed.

CR-HASAC (Community Radio Happy and Savvy Adolescent Campaign)

CR-HASAC – or the Community Radio Happy and Savvy Adolescent Campaign – used participatory Community Radio to achieve social and behavioural change in relation to Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights.  It was undertaken by the Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN) under Communicate for Health (C4H), a USAID-funded project implemented by FHI 360. CR-HASAC was implemented from April to October 2019.
The objectives of CR-HASAC were to:
  1. enable Adolescents to make an informed choice on desirable Sexual and Reproductive Health norms
  2. get Adolescents to take personal responsibility for their Sexual and Reproductive Health following their chosen norms
  3. grow a corps of Adolescents to lead and sustain the campaign and
  4. deepen the connection between Adolescents and their Community Radio station as their voice and resource.

To achieve the objectives, it placed adolescents, and in particular a cadre of Adolescent Focal Persons (AFPs),  at the centre and forefront of all activities.  It supported them to redirect and deepen their understanding of what it means to be a “happy and savvy” adolescent and capacitated them to lead the process in sensitizing their peers, developing content for radio programmes and also being the much needed voice for issues that affect adolescents most.

CR-HASAC is an example of how social and behavioural change can be realized from using “on-the-line media”.  This is GCRN’s term drawing from the more familiar usages – “above-the-line” for mass media and “below-the-line” for interpersonal communication channels. GCRN’s approach using participatory Community Radio interweaves both, hence “on-the-line”.

CR-HASAC was implemented by 11 Community Radio Stations (CRSs) located in seven Regions of Ghana and broadcasting in nine languages. These Community Radio Stations were the same stations that implemented a previous GCRN-FHI360 project, CR-ASRHR (Community Radio – Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights), to which CR-HASAC is in effect a sequel.

CR-ASRHR (Community Radio supporting Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights)

CR-ASRHR was the first sub-award of GCRN under the C4H project with a distinct focus on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (ASRHR). It was carried out over a nine-month period, from May 2018 to January 2019. It was implemented by 11 Community Radio stations located in the then five USAID Communicate for Health focal Regions. (Though working with the same 11 CRSs, CR-HASAC was implemented in seven Regions after one of the original five Regions was officially carved up into three administrative units.)

CR-ASRHR had two concurrent and complementary objectives in relation to ASRHR: (i) to increase knowledge and promote positive behavior among Adolescents and (ii) to foster community dialogue and action initiatives to enhance and support the behavioral changes needed.

It had a series of activities starting from a desktop review to project design formative community consultations to broadcast content formative research to the actual broadcast of participatory programmes that intertwined community engagements.

Key to the broadcast programmes and community engagement activities was the development of the “Happy and Savvy Adolescent” theme and the “Five Tips”, necessary attitudinal and behavioural changes, as follows: 1) Future First, Sex Later; (2) Manage your Sexual Urges; (3) Be in the Know about Menstruation, Sex and Pregnancy; (4) Make Your Own Decisions about Your Own Body; (5) If you must have Sex, use a Condom to protect yourself from Pregnancy and STIs.

Around the theme and the Five Tips, six educational jingles – dubbed “Infojingles” by GCRN – were developed. These were then translated, produced and broadcast by the 11 Community Radio stations in their respective broadcast languages.

CR-CP2KB (Community Radio supporting Community Participation in Two Key Behaviours)

The GCRN-UNICEF CR-CP2KB project used participatory Community Radio to address two Child Protection Key Behaviours: Birth Registration and Elimination of Child Marriage. The project ran from 09 August to 15 February 2019 with direct implementation starting on 05 September 2019.

Listening communities in nine Districts in five Regions in Ghana were, through their respective Community Radio Stations, led to examine more fully their experiences and challenges around Birth Registration and Child Marriage and how they may be resolved, and 15 focal communities in these Districts lead the way in taking action accordingly with enabling support by key local government officials and other duty-bearers and opinion leaders.

CR-CP2KB was implemented by five member stations of the Ghana Community Radio Network respectively serving nine Districts in five Regions: Radio Afram Plains – Afram Plains North and Afram Plains South Districts in the Eastern Region; Radio Builsa – Builsa North and Builsa South Districts in the Upper East Region; Radio Dayi – North Dayi District in the Volta Region; Radio Peace – Gomoa West and Ekumfi Districts in the Central Region; and Radio Simli – Kumbungu and Tolon Districts in the Northern Region.

GCRN has previously collaborated with UNICEF on two other projects, namely Community Radio- Community Participation in Children’s Well-being (CR-CPCW) and Community Radio- Community Participation in 5 Key Behaviours (CR-CP5KB).