Projects

2025 -

Ongoing

Farmers’ Voice Radio – Tea Yaya Radio Programme

Farmers’ Voice Radio (FVR) is an innovative agricultural learning model that uses radio as a community knowledge-sharing platform. The program connects smallholder tea farmers with practical, timely, and gender-sensitive farming guidance, delivered in their own voices, languages, and cultural context.

By amplifying the perspectives of women and smallholder farmers, FVR challenges traditional power structures and promotes equal voice, decision-making, and leadership within tea-farming households and communities. It helps farmers adopt improved farming practices, diversify income opportunities, and strengthen resilience to economic and environmental change.

Implementation

The program is delivered through a participatory media model:

Weekly 20-minute Sinhala-language radio broadcasts on local stations.
Episodes repeated multiple times for high accessibility.
Content co-created and reviewed by a Programme Reference Group of smallholder farmers — majority women.
30 trained Community Radio Champions facilitate listening groups and lead follow-up discussions in villages.
A feedback loop allows farmers to send questions to experts, answered in subsequent episodes.
All programs are also shared via a dedicated YouTube channel to expand reach.
This structure ensures the knowledge shared is locally relevant, farmer-led, and action-focused.

Beneficiaries

Direct Reach: ~60,000 smallholder tea farmers.
Indirect Reach: Up to 250,000 community members, family members, and neighboring farmers.

Strong focus on:

Women smallholders
Estate workers
Marginalized rural farming households

Key Outcomes

The program aims to ensure that by its completion:

At least 80% of regular listeners show improved agricultural knowledge and climate-resilient practices.
Women gain greater influence in household and community decision-making.
Communities adopt more equitable and sustainable farming methods, improving both productivity and well-being.
Smallholder farmers gain confidence and collective voice within the tea value chain.
FVR not only strengthens livelihoods and income stability, but also creates space for women to lead, speak, and shape the future of their communities.

Supporting Donors & Partners

This project was made possible through the generous support of our donors, whose contributions played a vital role in planning, implementation, and successful delivery. Their commitment to social impact and sustainable development helped drive meaningful change and ensured that the project objectives were achieved for the benefit of the communities involved.

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