William “Bill” Ryerson serves as the chairman of Population Institute and president of Population Media Center (PMC). A core focus of Bill Ryerson and the PMC team is creating compelling “entertainment-education” that teaches women about reproductive health and evolving social norms.
An example of the entertainment-education approach is the Dioula-language radio serial Cesiri Tono (“Fruits of Perseverance”) that aired in Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Mali for two years. Reaching an estimated 5.5 million people across 144 episodes, it earned the Ashoka Foundation Changemakers Innovation Award for effectively drawing attention to the issue of human trafficking. A Mali survey found that after the show aired, the overall perception that it was acceptable for women to engage in outside-the-home work increased by more than 50 percent.
Another program airing from 2012 to 2014 in Sierra Leone, Saliwansai (“Puppet on a String”) was a PMC serial in the Krio language that reached an estimated audience of three million. Surveys found that those who tuned in to Saliwansai were significantly more likely than the general populace to be able to identify people or advocacy organizations that work against domestic violence.
