Tunisia: Cakes, lambs and the voice of Kebili

A few years back we were wrapping up a day of coaching and Fahmi Bildaoui looked at me, hesitating. He said he wanted to ask me a question. Fahmi is about five foot three high and usually speaks so quietly that I have to bend down to hear him properly

He's the founder and head of a pretty crazy venture. He's driven to tell the world about people's grievances here in his town of Kebili, somewhere in the outback of southern Tunisia.

He said he'd wanted to change the region and so had set up a radio station of all things. Radio Nefzawa is a community radio and the people working there were all volunteers without any radio experience. Still, they were starting to get the station off the ground.

But experience was not the only thing missing. There was also no material and, most importantly, no money.That's why he wanted to get some feedback. Sure, Fahmi, I said, what is it?

He had an idea, he said. The sacrificial feast would be coming up in about half a years time and he was thinking of buying a herd of lambs. He said he'd raise the lambs, sell them as sheep, and then subsidize the station with the profits.

It's a great idea, I said, but if you don't have faith in your radio station and don't think you'll be able to earn money with it, why don't you just shut down the station and keep the money from the sheep sales instead? Yeah, Fahmi said, you’re probably right.

Striving for change

Fahmi still doesn't have a herd of sheep, but it's now fall 2016 and things have been moving here at Radio Nefzawa. Despite the scruffed-up laptops and plastic microphones that were probably produced in North Korea, the community station has become the leading radio in the region. It now has its own studio as well as reliable advertising clients. The station staff are finally getting paid and that's quite an historical achievement.

Kebili is a forgotten town in southern Tunisia, far away from everything else. Nothing much else grows here apart from dates. Tourists don't come here anymore and the town's only hotel had to close down last year because it couldn't pay the electricity bills. Not many people live here, there's no buying power and the radio market is covered by the state radio and a few private stations. It's not exactly the place for starting up a new venture.

Still, Fahmi has a quality that helps in Kebili - he's stubborn. His aim is to change things for the benefit of the region. Through a support association, the station is also organizing competitions for company founders, a crafts trade fair, and a cultural festival.

Nefzawa reporters get additional training whenever they can – often but not always from DW Akademie. They report on streets that were promised but were never built or on hospitals where there's an unusually high death rate. They also organize searches for victims of floods that were caused by torrential rains. They look at the things that large radio stations ignore.

It's having an impact. Even though Nefzawa still doesn't sound entirely professional and other stations broadcast better music, the people of Kebili and surrounding region are proud of their station and stay tuned.

And this in turn creates power. The governor before the last one was seconded from far-away Tunis and tried hard to ignore the station. The last governor threatened to finish the station off. But when Nefzawa opened its new studio in 2015 it was the current governor who stood up to cut the cake.

Democracies need free and independent media, and media that enable minorities and marginalized groups to voice their concerns to the world. DW Akademie has been supporting local radios in Tunisia for the last three years. Nefzawa is one of these stations. It is located in the small town of Kebili and has become the leading radio station in the region. DW Akademie project manager Rüdiger Maack has been on location for almost four years now and heads the Tunisian projects. He has been coaching Radio Nefzawa since the first workshop got underway in 2013.