Rádio Voz de Quelelé

Born in the peripheral neighborhood of Bissau, on February 4, 1994, on the initiative of the NGO AD (Action for Development), in collaboration with the association of residents of the Quelele neighborhood, it has been asserting itself during the appearance of the cholera epidemic that was raging the capital of Guinea-Bissau.

Quelele voice community radio is the first radio station on the island of community stations in the country, starting to broadcast twenty years after the first broadcasts of national broadcasting radio in an environment marked by great political complexity, in which the abolition of the one-party regime makes more suspicions than certainties, all new initiatives quickly gain the stigma of suspicion. The marking of the first multiparty elections in 1995, reinforces the fear of political power towards this first community radio, which was understood only as a threat to its perpetuation in governance.

Soon after the start of its operation, Rádio Voz de Quelele started to suffer several pressures and threats from the political power, which leads the radio to frequent changes of broadcasting location in the neighborhood. It was in this context that on March 24, 1994, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, through a circular, ordered the closure of the Voice of Quelele.

Eight months later, in November 1994, when the first cholera epidemic occurred in the city of Bissau, causing the death of hundreds of people. The NGO. A.D unilaterally decided to resume RVQ emissions, directing his emissions especially to fight that epidemic. The results were extraordinary with the participation of residents in education and awareness programs. Putting live questions and doubts to health technicians invited by A.D to animate and clarify doubts. They formed groups of residents who, through their own initiatives, carried out awareness campaigns, from door to door, on hygiene and basic sanitation in the community. Quelele's voice radio was always at the forefront of all local cholera-fighting initiatives. And this effort had good results, making the Quelele neighborhood a period of only one death and six cases during the period of the cholera epidemic, a job later recognized by the Ministry of Health itself, opening doors for the existence of community broadcasters in the country that today assumed the central role in the local development process.