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It was a turbulent 30-minute flight from Juba to Torit, in a small plane. I enjoyed the beautiful scenery from my window seat, green hills, valleys, groups of thatched huts, roads and lanes, before we landed on the rough gravel airstrip, which is dusty during the dry season and very muddy during the rainy season.

I had travelled to Torit for training as part of our sexual and reproductive health and rights project. We run community mobilisation in partnership with civil society organisations by training supervisors and volunteers to implement activities at the grassroots level. Through our listening groups, families and communities come together to listen to our radio programme, Let’s Talk About Us, have discussions and find solutions to address issues they identify.

The factual 15-minute radio programme aims to dispel common misconceptions about sexual and reproductive health, to tell people’s stories – both positive and negative - and feature health experts. The topics talk about men and women, their relationships, their bodies, and their health, addressing harmful norms and misinformation on family planning, sexually transmitted infections and menstrual hygiene; power dynamics among couples, especially about who makes decisions, and gender-based violence.

My job is to support and train volunteers and supervisors who implement our community mobilisation outreach activities. I have been doing it for nearly three years and have had the chance to travel to various locations across the country. I have learned a lot through this job. For example, before listening to this program, I assumed that when a girl starts to menstruate, she is ready to conceive and to give birth, regardless of her age. I did not know that her body is not fully developed, and she could be at risk of complications during delivery.
In some communities in South Sudan, when daughters start to menstruate, they are immediately prepared for marriage. I also used to believe that it is the woman’s eggs that determine the sex of the child, and that when a woman gets married, if children are not conceived, it is all her fault. Listening to experts and life stories on the radio programme has changed my thinking for the better. Now I feel free and empowered to share what I have learnt with others, so that they can also make informed decisions.

On my visit to Torit, I was overwhelmed to meet Eunice, a volunteer in her 40s, who was very enthusiastic to learn, and energetic in actively leading and participating in the discussions. The team seemed equally surprised and pleased to meet me, and not someone from the UK, which I think they may have expected. Eunice quickly had the community group engaging with and responding to her. In her work, she distributes radios to families and follows up with them to ensure they have listened to Let’s talk about us episodes. She interacts with these families twice a week, and collects feedback for the research team’s data analysis, to help improve and develop the project.

Eunice introduced me to Patricia, a 37-year-old single mother, who is a regular listener to the programme. Patricia told me about the challenges she went through in her marriage and living with a physical impairment.

“We lived a happy life at the beginning, but it was very short. The relatives of my husband blamed him for marrying a lame woman. They considered their brother to have brought a curse in their family,” Patricia said. “They kept blaming him for marrying me until one day, in 2008, my husband told me that he was going for further studies. Then he went for good in 2020. He went back to his wife in Wau.”

Patricia’s resilience amazed me. Saying “disability is not inability,” she described her work with the South Sudan Ministry of Education in Eastern Equatoria, how she is studying for a degree in human resource management, and how she earns extra income through small business to support her two children – a boy and a girl - to go to school.

Patricia told me her favorite episode of Let’s talk about us was about puberty and body changes in young boys and girls. The episode featured a lady who was surprised when she first saw menstrual blood and didn’t know what it was. She thought that maybe she got pierced by a nail in her buttocks. Patricia says she doesn’t want her daughter to be surprised when she sees period blood in her panties one day. She already understood the need to talk to her children about bodily changes, but she said she did not realise that talking to them about this at an early age - before the changes starts to occur – was advised.

After listening to the programme, she spoke to her children, and she told us her daughter responded and said that a female senior teacher had been talking to them at school, too. She already knew that big girls at school were always given pads.

I related to Patricia’s story because of my own personal experience when I was growing up. My mother never shared any information with me about bodily changes, or even what to expect at a certain age. The day I saw my period had begun, I was very confused and could not approach my mother, because I had never heard that ladies menstruate. It is considered taboo for mothers to discuss menstruation with their daughters. Instead, I spoke with a friend who was older than me, and who had already started her period. She guided me on what to use and how to keep clean, including changing sanitary pads three times a day or even four times, depending on the flow of blood.

After feeling more knowledgeable about talking to her children, Patricia expressed interest in hearing more episodes and said she decided to take the radio to her workplace, so that her colleagues can listen too, and be empowered to make their own decisions about sexual and reproductive health and their rights, after learning the facts from experts and hearing real people’s stories.

I’m happy Let’s talk about us is shining a light on the issues that women and girls face in South Sudan, and it is good to see how it is inspiring change. There is much still to do, and many taboo topics to address. For instance, many husbands will send their wives back to their families if they give birth to too many daughters – but not if they have many sons. Newly created episodes are helping spark discussions around the sex of babies, and through the programme, listeners are informed of how babies are conceived and how the sex is determined.

Looking ahead, our community mobilisation activities around Let’s talk about us will go beyond providing knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights. We plan to broaden our focus to changing attitudes and perceptions about how women, girls and people living with disability can freely access services and build themselves a brighter future.

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The radio programme Let’s talk about us forms part of our project, Amplifying Women’s Voices, which is supported by Global Affairs Canada. Find out more about our work in South Sudan here.