16 June, 2005 - Published 15:15 GMT

Celebrating women on Afghan radio

Since Afghan Woman's Hour was launched early in 2005, it has become an essential listen around Afghanistan and beyond. Rachel Ellison is the programme editor and Trust project manager, she has just returned from a training visit to Kabul:

"Our whole village stops to listen to your programme…and we tell our children to be quiet"

We know we're doing something truly worthwhile and of value to society when we receive such positive feedback on our programme.

Afghan Woman's Hour is designed to celebrate, inform and entertain Afghan women and girls.

It is breaking taboos in Afghan society. We’ve had items on forced marriage, on the stigma of giving birth to a girl, on women being beaten up by their husband or their mother in law. We cover education, politics and jobs women can do.

The programme offers information on gender and women’s health issues. Participants on the programme – from experts to ordinary women - offer advice to empower other women so they can change their lives if they want to.

The programme also gives women encouragement. It tells women how valuable they are both in their family homes and to Afghan society as a whole.

We hear from women who’re standing for Parliament or women who’ve taken the initiative in their local community.

With stories from all over Afghanistan: from Kabul and Kandahar, to Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif, from Jalalabad and the Provinces such as Paktia and Paktika, Afghan Woman’s Hour has a growing team of female journalists.

Their work is going from strength to strength. And they’re cascading their knowledge down to new women reporters who’re joining the programme.

Broadcasting in the Dari and Pashto languages, Afghan Woman’s Hour reaches all kinds of women – be they rural and urban, educated or illiterate, working, studying or women at home.

Afghan Woman’s Hour receives funding from the Conflict Prevention Pool of the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development.

It can be heard on BBC World Service Radio on the FM frequency across much of Afghanistan, as well as on Short Wave.

The Afghan refugee communities of Pakistan and Iran can also receive the programme and listeners in Europe and the USA enjoy it online via

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