On the Airwaves and in the Homes of Zambians: The Impact of  Kwishilya  and  Siñalamba

PMC’s first radio dramas in Zambia — Kwishilya (“Over the Horizon”) and Siñalamba (“Breaking the Barrier”) — broadcast 312 episodes across five provinces from 2018 to 2020. Supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of The Community Radio Program to Improve the Health of Women and Children, the shows addressed family planning, maternal and reproductive health, nutrition, gender-based violence, child marriage, and HIV.

Despite being PMC’s first broadcasts in Zambia — with no previous audience connection or brand recognition — 53 percent of Zambians aged 15 to 59 in the broadcast provinces heard of the shows, and 37 percent became regular weekly listeners. That amounts to an estimated 710,000 Zambians tuning in once or more per week for a year and a half, at a cost of approximately $3.25 per loyal listener.

The shows

Kwishilya broadcast in Muchinga, Luapula, Northern, and Central Provinces; Siñalamba broadcast in Western Province. Both were written and produced by Zambian professionals, performed by local actors, and broadcast on strategically selected community and commercial radio stations.

The storylines wove together four primary themes — family planning, nutrition, gender-based violence, and HIV — with additional threads on malaria, girls’ education, civic engagement, gender equality, and maternal health. Characters modeled the full range of perspectives listeners encounter in their own communities. In Kwishilya, the character Chomba faced pressure from his father to abandon family planning and have more children. As Chomba struggled between pleasing his father and continuing contraception, audiences encountered both negative and positive influences around him — mirroring the real social pressures that shape reproductive decisions.

Impact

To evaluate the shows’ impact, PMC conducted a cross-sectional outcome survey representative of the five target provinces. The survey compared knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors between regular listeners and non-listeners, using multivariate logistic regression to control for demographic factors including sex, age, marital status, number of children, education, residence, region, and religion. Data collection was conducted via mobile devices using an electronic questionnaire with built-in validation rules and consistency checks — a method that allowed the team to reach respondents across rural provinces where connectivity is limited, using both online and offline capabilities.

The results showed consistent, measurable shifts. Regular listeners were 1.6 times more likely than non-listeners to approve of a couple using a family planning method to delay or avoid pregnancy. They were 1.6 times more likely to be currently using a family planning method. They were 1.3 times more likely to have discussed prenatal services with a spouse in the past six months. They were 1.4 times more likely to know the benefits of exclusively breastfeeding infants younger than six months. And they were 1.2 times more likely to have taken action to advocate for girls’ education.

Alice and Geoffrey’s story

Alice Mwaba was the first in her family to hear Kwishilya and was hooked from the start. She encouraged her husband Geoffrey to listen with her.

“The program contained so much educational information that has helped us live better together as a couple and as parents,” Geoffrey said. “The fighting has stopped, and our relationship is being nurtured in a more loving environment.”

Thanks to Kwishilya, the couple learned to communicate positively when challenges arise. Quarrels are settled in private, away from their children, and Alice and Geoffrey discuss matters calmly — no longer escalating to yelling or physical confrontations.

What these shows demonstrated

Kwishilya and Siñalamba proved that PMC’s model could take root in a new country — with no existing audience, no established brand, and no prior broadcasts — and within 18 months reach more than a third of the target population as loyal weekly listeners. The shows laid the foundation for everything PMC-Zambia has built since: the sequel broadcasts, the InnovaLab pilots, and the peer-reviewed research that followed. USAID announced a cost extension to develop sequels to both shows, continuing through 2022.