Ujima Radio

Ujima Radio it's 15 years old in July this year. Since launching in 2008, Ujima has built an audience of 30,000 listeners daily on FM, 87,500 streaming live online & now on DAB. The radio is Bristol’s leading African & Caribbean arts and media social enterprise. Providing on-air community broadcasting. Ujima was the first radio station in the UK to receive Arts Council England funding in 2016.

Thank you for your time. I know you are a very busy woman.

“Hi, yes, sometimes. I work as an independent consultant for Black South West Network. I do different bits of chairing meetings. I'm a reparations activist. And there are a couple of organisations that I kind of lead in Bristol, the John Lynch African education programme, which is more of a cultural education programme. But what I spend most of my time in Bristol on is doing reparatory justice work through the African Connections Consortium, which was established in 2016. That's really about getting the substantive representation of African heritage communities' voices, within the city. And that has a strong reparatory justice, focus within it and with so we're part of the Bristol legacy group as an organisation that's looking at Bristol's role and how it can atone for and memorialise its role in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans. So I'm the chair of the African Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee, which has been holding the annual reparations rebellion for the last 10 years in London.

I've been a presenter at Ujima since 2016 at The Show Glocal. I am on the board since August last year and I've recently become the chair of the Radio. Being the chair of any organisation is about leadership, it's

Interview with the chair of Ujima: Jendayi Serwah

written by Laila Garzon Deguer

about ensuring effective governance, it's about ensuring that we are true to our mission as a community radio station, and amplifying the voices, culture, and everything around African heritage, and African Caribbean communities, it means that we, as other directors, not just the chair are responsible for making sure we are compliant with the regulations that we exist within as a community interest company and as an outcome regulated station, as somebody who receives public funds, etc.

But on the ground, our mission is really about as well as amplifying voices. It's about skilling up and building capacity in our community in the form of media training, and education.

So a lot of what Ujima does in the daytime is speech-based programmes for that reason, we're not really a music station until after the kind of drive you home, 6 pm onwards, because, you know, we've got a responsibility to transmit information on behalf of our community, but also give information, highlight and profile a community that's been minoritized in this Bristol in this UK context, because, as a digital radio station, we're not just about Bristol, we haven't just been about Bristol for a long time and Glocal is a programme that speaks to the African experience all over the world. And there are the programmes that have that wider remit as well. So since winning our digital licence, we've been able to own that a bit more and reflect that in what we do as well as having 98 FM, and the website as well.”

What is the future for Ujima?

“As always, the first priority is to make sure that we have the resources to fulfil the mission. So we're constantly looking for partnerships that fit in with what we want to do. So we can collaborate, on raising awareness around particular issues around health, social justice, education, as well as the creative arts in our communities, and other more politically kind of charged issues, such as reparations, and this so-called Windrush debacle, are two current examples of that, this year, we have anniversaries around that which, are contested actually, and quite rightly so. And we remember our own history as Bristol in terms of the Bristol bus boycott this year. We're quite a pioneering trailblazing city, and we mustn't forget that. So our priority is always to profile those things and get our community involved in acknowledging those things, learning more about those things and using our platform to generate a better world and a better place.”

Do you feel that after pandemic is hard to connect with the community?

“I think the pandemic was a very strange time, almost forgotten now. But I personally, as a presenter, broadcast live from the studio, throughout the pandemic. In the beginning, we were seen as key workers or whatever it is, because, without broadcast, the community would not know what was going on. When regulations and rules change, when new laws come in. Other stuff connected with the pandemic, you need the radio to broadcast those issues. To the community, it was a very strange experience walking to the station every day, because there was literally no one on the road. No one around, and then having to make modifications within Ujima. So we had no live guests for two years, for example, and, if you're co-presenting, you still needed to social distance in the studio, and things like that. So it was a surreal experience. But I think Ujima kept a connection and people needed to have something that was normal for them to kind of tune into in a very abnormal time.”

Carnival is back! How is Ujima’s relationship with it?

“We've been involved in the carnival. For many years, we hosted the main stage in previous years. This year, we also have a float. We're involved in the opening of Carnival and we do our best to work with the Carnival team to make sure that their information also goes out over the airwaves. Always Carnival would be part of Ujima's story. Honouring our elders and honouring the struggle of those gone by in terms of racial justice will also be a continuous part of Ujima's story, and celebrations. Ujima it's 15 years old in July this year. So we have no plans to stop doing what we're doing. I know we are a very important resource for the community and work in partnership with lots of different people, you know, from the NHS to venues like The Mount without and other organisations we have collaborated with to produce shows around health, for example, and we will continue to do that.”

“Ujima is the Swahili word for “collective work and responsibility” and this principle is at the heart of all we do.”

“For our future we need funding, we need donations. Because if we're going to upskill our community in media skills, if we're going to champion the voices that do not get platforms, then we need to keep going. So we do need investment, whether that comes in the form of grants, loans, or even your wonderful readers' donations. Welcome.

If you want it to be donated to us on Carnival Day, look out for the float. All those ways and partnerships work as well, where we can pull resources and have mutually beneficial relationships with other organisations, and institutions and so on. You know, we have interns from the university, for example, that contribute to our back-office functions as well.” www.ujimaradio.com

Get involved and be part of the comunity!

Date for your calendar: Ujima's 15th Birthday party is on Thursday 24th August at The Mount Without. 7 pm until midnight.