Ichi Chalo (This World in Which We Live)

A local company, Window Images, produced the series with collaboration from WFP. The goal of the programme was for people to draw the link between food security and their own security. The programme had a total of ten radio shows on food security. Each was broadcast in English and seven indigenous languages on both national and local community stations.

Ichi chalo radio shows had two segments, a 12-minute dramatised soap opera followed by 18-minutes of interviews and informative discussion. Depending on the topic being addressed, the soap opera was set in either a typical urban or rural community, where a host of entertaining characters are confronted with a range of issues linked to hunger and food security. Topics included the impact of HIV/AIDS, childhood malnutrition and natural disasters such as droughts and floods.

The show was scripted to appeal to everyone from farmers in remote rural areas to the top decision-makers in Lusaka. By translating and adapting the original show from English into Zambia's seven main indigenous languages (Nyanja, Bemba, Lozi, Tonga, Kaonde, Luvale and Lunda), World Food Programme (WFP) hoped the programme would broaden its own appeal and overcome linguistic and cultural barriers in the fight for food security.

Rights, HIV/AIDS, Health, Food Security, Agriculture.

The programme producers said, "Radio stations, and in particular community radio stations, have proven to be one of the best mediums for disseminating information in Zambia".

Ichi Chalo characters included: Amake Tofie, a market-trader and small-scale farmer with a slight drinking problem. Her good friend, Ba Estelleh, was a housewife who looks after the orphans of her daughter who died of AIDS.

Other regulars included Amake's wealthier half-sister, Aunty Maggie Tembo, and Ba Estelleh's brother from the village, Ba Jailos.