The Herald The usually serene town of Chiredzi reverberated to Shangani traditional music and dance on February 13, Avuxeni when the first licensed community radio station in Zimbabwe, went on air. The birth of the new station out of the 14 licensed community radio stations was a dawn of a new era for the people in the Lowveld who had been receiving radio signals from neighbouring countries such as South Africa and Mozambique for over four decades. Avuxeni, which is short for "Va le vuxeni", means people of the east and was adopted as a greeting slogan by the Vatsonga (Shangani) people, who dominate the Lowveld area from Mwenezi to the east right up to Malipati on the fringes of the Limpopo Valley. It is because of the role of radio, that Governments across Africa sought to extend information dissemination by coming up with community based stations. These have since become important support systems for information dissemination in a world that is increasingly becoming hostile...