Both Trans World Radio (TWR) and Sat-7 are reporting encouraging responses from their broadcasts to the Amazigh people group who live in north Africa.
Radio and digital media platforms are proving to be particularly effective tools to reach the Amazigh community and to encourage the Christian minority of local believers in their language.
The Amazigh – alternatively called the Imazighen – are a group of indigenous people who have lived in northern Africa for thousands of years. They predominantly live in Algeria and Morocco, but also reside in the entire region of northern Africa ranging from western Egypt to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic and down to the southern parts of the Sahara desert.
An ancient people
The Amazigh are the oldest inhabitants of North Africa, being mentioned in the most ancient hieroglyphs ever discovered, at Thebes in Egypt. They prefer to be called the Amazighs, meaning ‘free and noble men’, rather than Berbers, a Greco-Roman appellation meaning ‘barbarians’ which is how they have sometimes traditionally been known.
TWR broadcast Women of Hope in Kabyle, the language of a group within the Amazigh. It is produced indigenously and thus contextualised in a manner that speaks to the heart of the listener, just as a friend would be talking. It has generated significant listener responses. Many women have shared that the programmes help them endure hardship and persecution as they face many challenges both in society and their own homes, including abuse, fear, and a sense of worthlessness.
One Kabyle listener writes: ‘Only the word of Christ can give us enough courage to stand firm in the times of trial in this world. The church of Christ prospers in Kabyle; the Holy Spirit is at work at full speed.’
Another woman describes the Bible she was given as containing ‘a treasure of riches’.
Christian testimonies
Sat-7 broadcast five-minute testimonies of Amazigh Christians in a programme called It Is Written. Youssef, a shepherd in a rural area in Algeria, had few opportunities to meet Christians. But, he shared on the programme, a longing to know about Jesus burned inside of him.
Youssef said: ‘I heard about Jesus Christ as some said He is God and the Son of God. Something inside me stirred, pushing me to find out more about Him. I bought the Bible in the Tamazight language. When I read the Bible, I learned that Jesus Christ is God. He’s the one Isaiah prophesied about, Emmanuel – God is with us. I then gave my life to Christ completely and accepted Him as my personal Saviour.’
Folk Islam, comprised of Islam and traditional beliefs, is the main religion among the Amazigh. However, the Kabyle people within the Amazigh community have a noteworthy Christian minority, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Nearly all of the other Saharan Amazigh people groups do not have adequate Christian resources, if any.
The Amazigh are still predominantly an oral people group, which makes the combination of using radio and digital media platforms a particularly effective tool in reaching them as well as strengthening and encouraging the local believers in their language and form of communication – through storytelling.
