From On Air - Fall 2000

If Assisted, Assist Yourself

PCI's radio soap in Kenya, Ushikwapo Shikamana (If Assisted, Assist Yourself), addresses many of Kenya's social concerns. On the air since November 1998, the program has gathered a huge, dedicated following and continues to personally touch audience members.

The team of scriptwriters is headed by PCI’s senior consultant, Dr. Kimani Njogu, who has been with PCI virtually since its inception, writing, leading workshops, and coordinating script design.

Characters in the program deal with adolescent sexuality, the status of women, rural to urban migration, family planning, economic empowerment, drug abuse, and most recently, STDs and HIV/AIDS.

In this recent episode, a sick young man has returned to his village. Two of his neighbors discuss his condition.

Gogo: My friend, you've become a stumbling block to our culture.

Mchikichi: Why do you say that?

Gogo: You despise our traditional doctors, and insist that people go to hospitals. But the boy is being treated by medicine man Kereketa, and I believe he'll be fine.

Mchikichi: Kereketa puts too many people in danger. Your medicine man uses one razor to treat different patients.

Gogo: Our medicine man. Not my medicine man. But what's the razor got to do with this?

Mchikichi: If the boy has AIDS, Kereketa will finish off our village. His razor is the bridge through which the disease is spread. If one patient has HIV, it will be transmitted and then everybody will get AIDS.

Gogo: AIDS, AIDS, AIDS! What is AIDS?

Mchikichi: Go to the dispensary and you'll learn a thing or two. AIDS is no joke. The thing kills!

Gogo: You want me to go to a dispensary? (Laughs) The day I do, the sun will stand still!

Mchikichi: If assisted, assist yourself. That's what our people say. Dispensaries are brought close to our homes, yet we refuse to take advantage. . . .

Gogo: Dispensaries are nonsense. They're the white man's way of controlling us.

Mchikichi: Even children have tried to tell us about the scourge.

Gogo: And who will take over? Is it the youth or the women? Women want their rights, the children, everybody!

Mchikichi: These are signs that people have started to know about their rights and they're demanding them. Women, children, young people. . . . Everybody is demanding their space. What can you do, my friend?

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