By Carina Schmid | Program Manager
Ouro Negro was born in 2013 as the flagship program to promote UNICEF’s Facts for Life program in Mozambique. It is now so popular that 70 radio stations across the country are airing the drama and it has become the most reliable popular source of information on safe maternal and child health practices. Having aired over 100 episodes since it went on the air in 2015, Ouro Negro is now Mozambique’s longest running series.
The drama is set in the fictional town of Jambolane, a traditional African community confronted with the arrival of a foreign mining company. This clash of two worlds becomes the backdrop where tradition and modernity collide. Characters are woven through four major story arcs, focusing on the health practices of different audiences: both rural and urban families, as well as adolescents.
The mainstream success of the drama flies in the face of the notion that education cannot be both popular and entertaining. One actor described its success, saying “people feel they are represented in the drama ... The community says, this is our story. These stories touch the souls and hearts of people. If emotion grows in people, they’ll open their mind.”
The heart of the program is its ability to stimulate listeners to to adopt long-term healthy behaviors out of inner motivations associated with joy, satisfaction and freedom. Whereas a traditional health campaign, for example, might directly communicate, “sleep under a mosquito net or you will get malaria,” to tap into fears, we take an alternative approach. For Ouro Negro, the story will hone in on an ambitious young soccer player and expand to: “All your hard training is lost if you fall ill from Malaria before your next important game. You can prevent illness by sleeping under a mosquito net.” In an environment where listeners face so many threats to their health and wellbeing, they do not need to be soccer players to relate to the urgency and personalization of this storyline.
We are grateful to our Global Giving donors for recognizing the power of broadcast media and storytelling to positively change communities and work towards our goal of helping many more Mozambican children reach their 5th birthdays.
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