Viral Times

We gather the stories, sounds and sights of neighbourhoods overlooked through this time of contagion. And before it. We are making ourselves seen and heard. We also hear laughter. We celebrate the colour and craziness of where we live. We take the pulse of our streets, we explore, experiment. We make music, share testimony, gather evidence. We map out the data. We hold to account.

Viral Times, is a record of our days and a song of our futures.

Here’s what you’ll find on the site:

Micro Doses
Quirky snapshots of our city through the plague: everyday scenes from an extraordinary time. Voices and videos.

Daily Dose
Our not-quite-daily dose of viral news and views from the waterfronts and beyond. Articles and audio reports.

Over Dose
Big stories and deep dives into what we are learning from this pandemic. There’s a lot in here! Under The Lens: investigations, reports and critical reflections from our citizen journalists; Data Stories: statistics and infographics generated by our community mappers; Pandemic Timeline: digests of major public health announcements and measures, the numbers, decisions and their consequences; finally, Waka Pass My Window: with half the world indoors, we were leaning out our windows to catch the views and voices of our streets. Audio features, photo-series, articles, infographics, maps and soundscapes.

Music
Sounds from our makeshift lockdown studio to quicken the heart and steel the soul. Songs and soundscapes.

Drama
We’ve just launched our own radio drama series, Angala Community! The police decide to swoop into Angala community and round up all the young men in a dragnet. At the heart of our story are two young women and two young men whose dreams of love, learning and earning are shattered by the police raid and its fall out. In the wake of the #EndSARS protests and their aftermath, this story is painfully relevant. We’ll be posting an episode each week.

All you see and hear here has been produced by young people from Port Harcourt’s waterfront communities — the UN would call these ‘informal settlements’ and some insist on calling us ‘the urban poor’. Welcome to Chicoco Radio. We also have some wonderful guests lined up — artists; activists; historians; reporters and special rapporteurs.

Stay tuned!