This past month there were many events, and people worked hard to write many articles. So even though we had been trying to make the Journal shorter in order to make more copies, this month the Journal was eight pages long. It seemed to be important to put in all of the information and articles that we had about the many events. Also, the workers of the Journal are encouraged to see all of their articles printed. This doesn’t mean that we have forgotten our idea to keep the journal shorter, but the length of the journal depends on many factors. Maybe next time it will be possible to reduce the length and to increase the number of copies.
The community seems to be very interested in the journal as they decided to continue the journal until FORGE leaves the camp. People in the community have also said that they hope that FORGE will continue this project wherever they will go in the future. Some people find it difficult to understand news from the radio, and some people don’t have access to radios on their own. So they are very interested in the journal as a useful way for the community to get information, and this is even why they decided to keep the journal.
In Congo, there are not many newspapers, especially not outside of the big towns. People in Congo are very used to getting news through the radio, and there are many radio stations operating in Congo. The advantage of the radio seems to be for breaking news and for access- people over a big distance can get current information. But when you only get news through the radio, there can also be problems. Many people don’t have radios. People can forget what they are hearing, or they can just be excited by the news without learning something from the details. Having news written down allows people to learn more information, because they can read articles many times and they can also compare articles to see how events are developing over time.
Before we fled the war, in Moba Kirungu there was a small group of people who started acting as reporters. They were very interested in the news and were very good at listening, even in many languages, and at understanding information from the radio. These people would listen to the news and then meet together to discuss what they had heard. From these conversations, they would discover some important things to share with everyone, and they created large bulletin boards in the market where they would go each morning to write information to share with the people from different sources. Many people became used to pass by the market to learn information from these reporters, and the reporters were serious, even updating things in the evening. The people in Moba appreciated having the important news written by reporters to make it easier to understand things, and people also appreciate having this opportunity today in Mwange from the Journal.
