On Tuesday 4 June 2019, at the premises of Rainbow Radio in Mbengwi, financial support from HRH Dr. Fomuki Walters, Fon of Guneku, and his Traditional Council was handed to people living with disabilities. The package totalled 150,000 FCFA; twenty-six beneficiaries attended and each received 5,000 FCFA.
Ngwa Vitalis, an elite of Guneku, represented the Fon and the Traditional Council. His explanation for the choice of venue was the point of the occasion: the cry had been made at Rainbow Radio, and the village chose to answer it there. He also urged that the association build a register of people living with disabilities in Mbengwi for the use of future donors.
What set it off was a broadcast. Moris Tagyen, Station Manager of Rainbow Radio, had aired a Meta-language programme carrying an interview with a man living with visual impairment in Mbengwi. The station shares its recorded programmes in a group used by indigenes abroad, which is how the broadcast reached the Fon in Germany.
Agwe Eric Tata, President of the Mbengwi Association of Persons with Special Abilities, said that support had been heard of for displaced people but that nobody had thought of people with special abilities.
Two microphones
Sent with the same package were two studio microphones for Rainbow Radio, which were installed and reported to have transformed the quality of its broadcasts. Rainbow Radio, 99.5 FM at Mile 18, Ku-Bome, Mbengwi, was established in 2013 and is the only station to have survived in the subdivision.