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"When the radio goes off, it can get very lonely here."

Joseph Momoh is the manager of Radio Bontico, a community-based station staffed entirely by part-time volunteers on Sherbro island, Sierra Leone. Filmmaker Terry Wilson and I had come to this spot in the far south of the country to meet the volunteers and to find out more about the work of our colleague, trainer and mentor Ed Kargbo (whose blog can be read ).

Sherbro is a car-free island of under 10,000 people, reached by public transport after a two-hour boat ride that first stops off at a string of tiny villages along a mangrove-lined channel. When the river opens up at the Atlantic Ocean you reach the end of the line: Bonthe town on Sherbro. This has been home, for the past six months, for Ed, who has been training 14 volunteers in basic presentation techniques and journalism.

Radio Bontico broadcasts daily in the morning and evening and can be heard from every open doorway, market stall and fisherman’s boat. There are no newspapers, only a handful of TVs, and reception for other radio stations is very poor. The scattered neighbouring Turtle islands and mainland shore-side villages all listen to Radio Bontico too.

Joseph says he is tremendously grateful to his volunteers. They all, himself included, take no pay, so why do they do it? Joseph’s answer echoes those of the others: "Because communication is power. This community is so deprived – we are very cut off from the mainland. I want to serve my community, I have lived here all my life and I love it. Sherbro island and Bonthe town used to be an area of commerce but bit by bit it has all been taken away."

Signs of the decline are all around: from the crumbling husks of warehouses on the waterfront to the rusting and cannibalised plane whose aborted last take off was the final attempt to fly out of Sherbro’s airstrip.

Yet the island has played a significant part in Sierra Leone’s history. In the 19th century Bonthe was a regional centre for the anti-slavery movement and grew to become a thriving colonial and trading post. And in the immediate aftermath of Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war, Sherbro briefly took centre stage again. In 2003, the first indictments of the Special Court for Sierra Leone were held in Bonthe’s small magistrate’s court. Then its isolation was a plus, helping ensure security, and the now abandoned airport saw busy two-way traffic of guards, legislators and observers.

Both the jail that once housed the accused and the court that heard them sit directly beside Radio Bontico, itself accommodated in the former Customs House. This proximity to both the recent past and to the mechanics of justice seems fitting, as Joseph sees fostering governance as a role for the station:

"We are managing to keep our heads up here. In the past five to six years we have seen positive change and the radio station – set up five years ago - is a big part of that. It helps disseminate information. Politics can be used to divide but the radio here is helping get all parties talking ahead of November’s presidential elections.  Working together, across political and ethnic lines, is the remit of the radio station and that’s what we have all volunteered to do here."

The geographical isolation makes progress challenging. For Ed to get to the nearest bank he has to first catch the boat (which tends to sail only when it is full), then hire a motorbike and take a four-hour pitted road trip to the town of Bo. Tourism could be one solution: wildlife, beaches and deep sea fishing do already attract visitors. On the hotel notice board there was a photo of a smiling Canadian woman straining to hold by the tail a tarpon taller and wider than she was. It was, the hotel manager proudly told me, a world record-breaking fish.

On our journey down to Sherbro we travelled on a stretch of road under construction through Chinese investment. More infrastructure support is badly needed to strengthen links across the country. But in the meantime, while Sherbro’s islanders await a strip of tarmac, for road or runway, that might reawaken its own commercial potential, the volunteers of Radio Bontico are helping connect their own community.

The long road to recovery has started at home.