GERARD VANDENBERGHE, Nairobi | Monday
AFRICA’S airwaves are shortly to become a new battleground in the war against Aids, with Kenyan television stars and a supporting cast of numerous UN agencies and other international backers joining forces in a new soap opera for the continent.
“Heart and Soul” will begin radio and television broadcasts as well as street theatre performances in Kenya early next year and will, it is hoped, become a regular weekly fixture towards the end of 2002.
Its producers hope that the show will later be aired across the continent.
A sneak preview in the United Nations’ Nairobi complex gave a taste of one of the principal “edutainment” themes of the programme.
It portrays an ageing husband succumbing to the charms of a younger, voluptuous woman, who has already managed to seduce the old man’s son.
Reducing promiscuity has been one of the cornerstones of campaigns against the spread of HIV and Aids in Africa.
“Heart and Soul” also is expected to address other issues of concern to the UN poverty reduction, environmental protection, governance and human rights, and gender.
The show will feature Kenyan actors and be shot by the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation with technical assistance from its British counterpart, the BBC.
Matthew Robinson, a veteran producer of the BBC’s long-running and hugely successful soap, EastEnders, will also be on board.
Twenty-four UN agencies with offices in Nairobi, the British Council, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Ford Foundation are also involved in the project.
“We are going to be part of it,” pledged Dr Margaret Gachara, head of Kenya’s National Aids Control Council, during the preview.
The budget for the first phase is around $750 000.
The producers are seeking more partners, according to UN representative Tore Brevik, who added that one of Nairobi’s most popular FM radio stations planned to broadcast “Heart and Soul”.
“The UN is looking for more partners, especially in the private sector, to make sure the project goes on for three to five years,” he said.
Brevik noted that there were successful precedents for such projects, even if the extent of the UN’s mobilisation was a first.
“Heart and Soul” takes its inspiration from a South African TV show focusing on public health, called “Soul City”. – AFP