Thanks to Eric Rimmer for this article.

Population Media Center addresses the issue of marriage by abduction in its radio serial dramas in Ethiopia. One listener wrote to tell us that her daughter had been abducted on her way to school at age 14 and ended up married as a result. The letter writer and her husband were afraid to send their 12-year old girls to school for fear the same thing would happen to them. When PMC addressed this issue in our serial drama, the entire village, in which everyone was listening to the program, came together and agreed to enforce the law against marriage by abduction. As a result, the letter writer said, it was now safe to send their 12-year old girls to school.
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Every woman remembers her wedding day with a tear in her eye – but, here in Ethiopia, the tears are different, and darker, and do not stop. Nurame Abedo is sitting in her hut high in the clouds, remembering the day she became a wife. She lives hundreds of miles into the countryside, thousands of feet above sea-level, in the hills of the bridal-kidnapping capital of the world. For 40 years, she didn’t talk about her wedding, or how it came to happen. If she tried, she was beaten by her captor, who said good women never speak of such things. So she tells her story slowly, haltingly, her sentences punctuated by sudden high-pitched laughs that seem to erupt involuntarily from her gut.

For full article, visit:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa

Below is a copy of Bill Ryerson’s speech from the 10th Anniversary Celebration of PMC-Ethiopia, held July 1, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Ethiopia Tenth Anniversary Talk by Bill Ryerson (PDF, 116 KB)

(Photo of Dr. Negussie Teferra speaking at the event)

Greetings from Ethiopia, where, today, PMC-Ethiopia celebrates its 10th anniversary. With 740 episodes produced and aired to date, several radio magazine programs and talk shows, more than ten publications, and numerous workshops, PMC-Ethiopia celebrates its tenth year as the leading organization for entertainment-education for social change in Ethiopia.

Just one year after starting PMC, Bill Ryerson, President, visited Ethiopia and met Dr. Negussie Teffera. At the time, Dr. Negussie was working as head of the National Office of Population for the Government of Ethiopia; previously he worked as a radio producer – a perfect fit for PMC’s work. Soon after this visit, Dr. Negussie joined PMC as the Country Representative for Ethiopia, and now ten years later, Dr. Negussie has carried out six highly impactful programs in the country.
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This New York Times OpEd covered PMC-Ethiopia’s soap operas, Yeken Kignit and Dhimbibba.
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A friend of mine, a physician who works the longest hours of anybody I know, makes only one exception from her demanding schedule in New York. Once a week, she returns home early to watch a new episode of her favorite soap opera.

I cannot think of a more unlikely fan. It goes to show that soap operas appeal across a broad spectrum, from the most intellectually sophisticated to people with little or no formal education.

So it should come as no surprise that soap operas, or telenovelas, are increasingly being used throughout the world to disseminate messages about health issues such as the need for contraception, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, how to achieve peace between countries in conflict and how to elevate the status of women in developing countries. By identifying themselves with the protagonists’ dreams and problems the viewer establishes an immediate connection with them.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/opinion

The Spring 2010 newsletter features stories about PMC’s programs in Ethiopia, the United States and Papua New Guinea.

Spring 2010 Newsletter (PDF, 2MB)

With 740 episodes produced and aired to date, several radio magazine programs and talk shows, more than ten publications, and numerous workshops, PMC-Ethiopia celebrates its tenth year as the leading organization for entertainment-education for social change in Ethiopia.
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The green landscape around Abebech Angelo’s home in Agaza Duge village near Boditi town, 370km south of Addis Ababa, belies the food shortages that southern Ethiopia is facing.

The area was dry and parched only a few weeks ago, but has turned green with the arrival of recent rains. However, “the rain did not come on time”, said Abebech. “Because of that we did not have a good harvest; and this led to the [current] food shortage.”

For full article, visit:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=85666

PMC’s Ethiopian serial drama, Sibrat (”Trauma”), is featured in this month’s edition of Harper’s Magazine.

Sibrat, Harper’s Magazine Article (PDF, 104 KB)

Sibrat (”Trauma”) is being broadcast throughout Ethiopia on the National Service of Radio Ethiopia in the Amharic language. Sibrat is a 25 minute program that airs every Sunday and Wednesday after the 21:00 news. It is repeated on FM Addis on Monday and Thursday at 15:00. The main themes of the program are female genital mutilation/cutting, gender equity, and child abuse.

PMC was recently featured in Earth Island Journal
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/sex_sells/

Sex Sells: A Tiny Nonprofit Uses Mass Media to Encourage Family Planning

Fikrite is a girl in trouble. Her grandfather has just died and now a neighbor, a man named Damte, has taken over the house and is trying to turn the place into a bar and brothel. Fikrite says she won’t allow it, so Damte starts spreading rumors about the girl and soon everyone, including her boyfriend, thinks that she is hiding a child born out of wedlock. Damte then seduces Fikrite’s stepsister, Lamrot, gets her hooked on booze and drugs, and knocks her up. When Lamrot tries to abort the pregnancy, she almost bleeds to death and lands in the hospital, where she finds out that she is HIV-positive.

If this sounds like overcooked melodrama – well, that’s the point. The story comes from “Yeken Kignit” (“Looking Over One’s Life”), a radio soap opera that gripped much of Ethiopia for 257 episodes beginning in 2002. The show had all of the elements that make serial dramas popular: sex, romance, mischief, betrayal, suspense. But the wildly successful program – which reached more than one half of Ethiopian adults during its two-year run and sparked a craze for naming baby girls Fikrite – wasn’t designed just for entertainment. Produced by a small US organization called the Population Media Center (PMC), the show was written with the express purpose of encouraging family planning, women’s empowerment, and HIV/AIDS awareness. Not all the listeners knew this, however, and that was also the point.
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Thanks to Kathleen Mogelgaard, Senior Program Manager for Population and Climate Change at Population Action International for this article from PAI’s blog.
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“We farmers don’t have access to family planning and we are moving more and more into poverty.”

As the world focuses on the outcomes of the meeting on climate change that just concluded in Poznan, Poland, I am sitting in a workshop in Nazret, Ethiopia, listening to a panel of farmers talking about the effects of climate change on their lives – less rain, lower crop yields, malaria, no milk for their children. The farmers, from Amhara Region in the Rift Valley, talked about population pressure. They are acutely aware that farm sizes shrink with each generation and speak eloquently of the need for access to family planning so they can have fewer children. Rural Ethiopians currently have an average of six children.

For full article, visit:
http://www.populationaction.org/blog/2008/12