Kenyan youth find their superhero
April 21, 2011 6:02 a.m. EDT
Staff and artists at the offices of Shujaaz FM creating the next issue of the comic.
Copyright Brendan BannonSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Shujaaz.fm is a daily radio show, monthly comic book and online community
- Radio show and comic carry educational and inspirational messages for young people
- The characters have thousands of friends on Facebook
- The story lines mainly have an agricultural theme or are about how to make money
(CNN) -- An unlikely superhero is coming to the rescue of a generation of young Kenyans.
Meet Boyie, a 19-year-old guy who has left school and can't find a job. To keep himself busy he's built an FM radio station in his bedroom and hacks into other programs in order to broadcast his show under his alter ego DJB.
Boyie is slowly taking over the hearts and minds of Kenyans across the country with Shujaaz.fm -- a radio show, comic and lively online community. There's even talk of his own television show.
But there's a twist -- Boyie is a fictional character, played by an actor.
Despite this, the team behind Shujaaz.fm says he has reached out to more people than any government or NGO has managed to in the past.
"We didn't think there was anyone around having an interesting conversation with Kenyan youth," explained Rob Burnet, director of Nairobi-based Well Told Story, the company behind the project.
"There was quite a lot of commercial media aimed at people with money in their pockets and there was very little for people who were younger and didn't have any money and need access to bright ideas and inspiration," he added.
Funded by a mixture of corporate sponsorship and international donors Shujaaz.fm is about getting messages out to young people, an important job in a country where nearly a third of the population is under 30.
Our first goal is to entertain our audience and be cool and be fun.
--Rob Burnet, director, Well Told Story"Shujaaz" means "heroes" in Sheng, a Kenyan combination of Swahili and English. Shujaaz.fm has only been broadcasting from Nairobi since the end of 2009 but it already reaches nearly a third of the young population in Kenya.
A survey carried out by the independent research company Synovate found that around 8 million Kenyans aged under 35 had read the comic and that around half of this group had heard of the radio show.
Through the lives of Boyie and his three fictional friends, Maria Kim who lives in a slum; a farmer's son, Charlie Pele and rebellious teenager Malkia, they share their adventures and bright ideas with the masses.
Youngsters are educated about everyday topics such as farming, how to make money, human rights and staying out of trouble. But Burnet said the service's one underlining rule is to always put the audience first.
"Our first goal is to entertain our audience and be cool and be fun. It's not to deliver development ideas, that comes later," said Burnet.
The radio show is broadcast daily on 22 FM stations nationwide and the storylines are continued in the monthly comic. The team says it is currently working on a daily television show as well.
"This last week we've been interviewing reformed Kenyan gangsters telling us about how they gave up the life of crime to get on with something good. We've also been talking recently about drunkenness and drug abuse," said Burnet.
"We are guided by what we think our audience wants to know about us. The biggest topic young people want to talk about is how do you put a bit of money in your pocket, what cool ideas are out there that you could apply," he continued.
The station's audience is more than happy to tell DJB and his friends what they think. Fans interact with the characters like they are real people and, because the story lines are similar to their own lives, the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred.
He (DJB) is also trying to survive and make a responsible member of the community out of himself like every other young person out there.
--Kades, actor who plays DJB.DJB receives 2,000 text messages a month and the characters have thousands of friends on Facebook who interact with them daily. If a fan has a bright idea they are invited to the show to tell others about it.
"DJB has become popular simply because he is true," said Kades, the actor who plays Boyie in the radio show.
"His popularity is growing because he is not different from his fans in that he is not coming from a rich family. He is also trying to survive and make a responsible member of the community out of himself like every other young person out there," he continued.
The story lines have mainly had an agricultural theme and a team of writers works closely with science organizations and citizen groups to make their message interesting.
"I speak to the experts to ensure that the right information goes into the stories," explained Audrey Wabwire, a content producer for Shujaaz. "I speak to the audience to find out whether they understand the stories to ensure that the content remains relevant to them."
Stuart Brown, from the NGO GALVmed, approached Shujaaz to raise the profile of livestock in Kenya and the vaccinations available for animals.
"They (Shujaaz) are phenomenally successful in their outreach and getting into rural communities," he explained.
"The authenticity that Shujaaz offers underpins and legitimizes the information that needs to be communicated. The pictures, thinking and writing is produced by the very people they are addressing -- it's written and drawn by Kenyans," he continued.
<p>Mariakim Iss.01 from Shujaaz.fm on Vimeo.</p>
Shujaaz says its ability to spread often-complicated messages has begun attracting the attention of large technology companies, keen to reach out to young Kenyans.
But Burnet is quick to point out that they won't work with all companies that approach them.
"We have an internal filter that makes us ask 'does this story have a benefit to our audience?' and if it doesn't, we don't do it," he explained.
Kades said he wishes that he'd had a superhero like DJB when he was growing up.
He said: "If we had someone open and truthful like DJB most of my friends would not have been dead; the other half will not have wasted themselves in drugs and become parents in their early teenagehood."
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Shujaaz FM - inspiring Kenya's young entrepreneurs
© Shujaaz FM
Each day across 17 leading Kenyan FM radio stations at national, regional, district and community level, DJ Boyie broadcasts a short five minute show to millions of listeners. While DJB may be a fictional character, and the programme not really made in his bedroom, the popularity of the daily broadcasts, and linked monthly comic-strip magazine, is very real.
"As a young person I want new projects, new ideas, new things to help me grow up, positively," says Paul Peter Kades. His voice, familiar to millions of Kenyans, provides the character DJB, the dreadlocked, glasses-wearing school leaver who runs a radio station in his bedroom: Shujaaz FM.
Launched in February 2010, Shujaaz is the inspiration of Well Told Story, a Nairobi-based communications company. Since then the growth in Shujaaz FM's audience of readers and listeners has been phenomenal. Recent independent research revealed over 50 per cent of 18-24 year olds in Kenya were aware of the programme, with 6 million copies of the magazine now in circulation. With a monthly print run of 600,000 copies, available free from Safaricom 'm-pesa' (mobile-based money transfer agents) and as an insert in the Nation newspaper, the Shujaaz FM comic is already Kenya's most widely distributed publication.
Comic inspiration
© RIU
Drawn by young Kenyan artists, the Shujaaz comic portrays the lives and adventures of four 'ordinary' young people. 'Shujaaz' means 'heroes' inSheng - Kenyan slang widely spoken by the youth, and used within the comic strip. Empowering young people to be heroes in their own communities is at the heart of the project, and surveys suggest that the Shujaaz characters have already become inspirational for many. Around a third of readers report sharing ideas from the comic with their friends - something the magazine promotes strongly - and it's estimated that each copy is read by as many as 20 people.
Generally younger readers, from 11-18, are the most likely to act on what they read. Agricultural technologies are popular, especially when they are seen to be new and relatively easy to apply. Partner organisations FIPS-Africa and the DFID Research into Use (RIU) programme have supported the Shujaaz team to suggest simple and accessible technologies with countrywide relevance. Early editions of the magazine included stories about painting chicks pink to stop them being taken by predators, growing kale in sacks, and soaking seed before planting.
Building bridges and businesses
© Shujaaz FM
Storylines for both comic-strip and radio programmes are closely linked, and offer a careful balance of entertainment and education. Tolerance and citizenship have been key themes, particularly in the run-up to polling on the new Kenyan constitution, when three special editions of the magazine were written in collaboration with the National Cohesion and Integration Commission. Surveyed readers have high aspirations, particularly in business, so stories that contain advice on obtaining loans or writing a business plan have been well-received.
In admiring DJB's integrity, social skills and good advice, listeners are sending over 1,000 texts a week to his radio show. In addition, a personal Facebook page created for Boyie, quickly reached the limit of 5,000 friends, and so Shujaaz now has an unlimited 'fan-site' page. DJB's popularity and example, and that of the other characters, has encouraged young people to feel more confident and to explore new options presented in Shujaaz. Standing up against tribalism, speaking more effectively to authorities and working on a business plan are all commonly cited by readers as ways the magazine had prompted them to take action.
Managing and maintaining success
© RIU
At times, the popularity of Shujaaz has raised expectations too high. In one edition, football-mad Charlie Pele, who lives in a camp for displaced people, tries to impress a local girl. Nothing works, until he decides to grow some new varieties of sweet potato - the taste of which wins her over. According to Keith Sones, head of communications for RIU, readers in 86 districts subsequently contacted Shujaaz to get information about the new varieties, but could only be referred to a handful of sources of planting material. To avoid similar disappointment, a planned storyline on a new cassava variety has been delayed until sufficient planting material is available to meet the anticipated demand.
Despite this, Rob Burnet, the social-entrepreneur behind Well Told Story, is hugely excited by Shujaaz's progress and keen to see it working more with the private sector, to balance commercial and development interests. At a meeting in September to celebrate the 5 millionth copy of the magazine, 150 Kenyan business and development leaders were invited to consider sponsoring the project, in return for either advertising or product placement. "To ensure Shujaaz FM can survive into the future, we want to see the balance of our income shift from 60 per cent donor funding to 60 per cent corporate funding," explains Burnet. The next step, he hopes, will be to have animated versions of the comic, already available on the Shujaaz website, sponsored for television broadcast.
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