Informed Community; Empowered Citizen

Basilwizi; good deed inseparable ...says Community

By Luumuno Siangoma Mudenda and Jacob Mumpande

Binga community appreciates all who contributed effort to the origins of Basilwizi Trust. The organization has done a all in helping remote areas in the district especially when it comes to information dissemination. It has trained 14 "citizen journalist", opened media clubs, through the club they now produce newsletters and consistently supply newspapers weekly.

"Did you hear about that?" News consumers seem to be saying at Siachilaba  B/Center

Academically we are benefiting from the project as we are now improved in English Language, owing to great exposure to newspapers", said Everjoy Muleya, a student at Pashu high.

People in the community are very pleased with the weekly distribution of newspapers and are now updated with current events.

Areas such as Lubanda, Lusulu and Sinamagonde have no access to newspaper due to their location far from the main road which goes to the district centre. Villagers confirmed that they may see a newspaper four months after date of publication.

"We are now informed on current events, we no longer rely on word of mouth which is highly distorted, thanks to the Basilwizi family" said one local leader from Saba ward.

Villagers glued to newspapers and Basilwizi In-house printed newsletter for current affairs

Distribution of newspapers has had a lot of impact on community lives. News access has raised social status and people can now get access to job vacancies through the weekly distributed newspapers. The organization produces a fortnightly newsletter which is distributed twice in a calendar month. The community members and leaders are supporting the project as they feel it can keep their children meaningfully occupied making them abstain from peer pressure and other illegal activities

“Having our own in-house news tabloid is like having our own printing press, we are very proud of Basilwizi family to keep up the good work”, said one Solomon Mudenda of Saba. People are however complaining that newspapers such as The Herald and Chronicle are not in the delivery package, and are requesting for the distribution of these. 

“We do not distribute daily newspaper copies as we consider them to be perishable the next day, so due to distance we distribute weekly newspaper”, said Mr J.Z Mungombe, the Project Officer.