Mama Ushauri
"Mama Ushauri" (Mama Advice) is a public service radio program that promotes family health, focusing on family planning and more recently child survival. Communication themes center on the benefits, safety, and availability of modern contraceptive methods such as oral and injectable contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUD), implants, and sterilization. Mama Ushauri also promotes male involvement and support, encouraging partners to talk about family planning and reproductive health. Recently, the “Mama” platform has begun promoting rational diarrhea treatment using zinc and oral rehydration therapy to improve child survival.

Told through the lens of three families, the diverse and insightful radio episodes appeal to a variety of Tanzanians, both men and women in rural and urban audiences. In the fictional peri-urban community of Goromonzi, the home town of Mama Ushauri, a young couple contemplates when to have their first pregnancy. Across town, a middle-aged couple with children discusses birth spacing, and an older couple explores permanent family planning methods when a pregnancy scare makes them realize that unless they take action they could become parents again. Together these three families offer compelling characters and behavior change paradigms illustrating how, over time, individuals become aware of the importance of changing their attitudes and practices, adopting appropriate and beneficial behaviors.  The families and Mama Ushauri herself encourage the sustainability of new behaviors and reinforce the benefits of improved reproductive health.

Following the success of 2007’s “Mama Ushauri III” radio serial drama with an airing of 26 episodes, T-MARC Company developed and launched “Mama Ushauri IV," inviting partners to contribute an array of thematic health storylines to the radio drama series, which included:

• Prevention from mother to child transmission, in collaboration with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF).
• Prevention of malaria for pregnant women, in collaboration with the John Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics (Jhpiego) ACCESS project.
• Use of zinc and ORS for childhood diarrhea, in collaboration with the Academy for Educational Development (AED) POUZN project.   
• Enhanced modern family planning methods, in collaboration with the Academy for Educational Development (AED) T-MARC project.
• Promoting vitamins A to Z, in collaboration with Helen Keller International (HKI).

The Mama Ushauri radio serial drama supports the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare’s (MOHSW) goal to build health knowledge among the public.  Over the past year, T-MARC Company created and aired 52 new story lines with the assistance of its partners and the MOHSW.

The Mama Ushauri drama airs nationally eight times per week on four radio stations: Radio Tanzania, Radio Free Africa, Radio One, and Zenji FM.

Read about the 2007 and 2008 launch of Mama Ushauri.

This activity is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Tanzania.

Data/Results

• According to the baseline KAPB, the percent of target populations that recalled hearing or seeing a specific message from the Mama Ushuari FP campaign was 53% among miners, 55% among CSWs, 59% among truckers and barmaids, and 71% among police. The proportion recalling specific messages from a generic condom promotion campaign was 12% among police, truckers, and barmaids, 15% among CSWs, and 16% among miners. The proportion of target populations recalling specific messages from project communications campaigns promoting two project brands (Dume and Lady Pepeta) ranged from 7% (police) to 28% (CSWs) for Lady Pepeta and from 16% (CSWs) to 27% (barmaids).