Reach4Life: How TWR's Christian Media Ministry Is Reaching Africa's Youth

A Life-Changing Message in Kakuma

Living in the enormous Kakuma Refugee Camp of Kenya, Peter heard a life-changing message.  

“The discussion on drug addiction spoke directly to me,” he wrote. “I think I need to seek help and begin a journey to recovery.” 

We don’t know Peter’s surname or his origin – the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Kakuma come from South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other countries. We do know what he was listening to: Biblica’s Reach4Life, broadcast on the Kakuma station of TWR Kenya’s Sifa FM network.  

“What Reach4Life is doing is really tackling the issues that young people are facing directly, but using the Bible as a compass, using biblical principles as an anchor to understanding life’s major challenges,” said Njoki Chege, executive director of TWR Kenya.
  

What is Reach4Life?

Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society) began Reach4Life in 2004 as a 40-lesson Bible study curriculum in response to the HIV epidemic in South Africa.  

“It was very much the church who asked Biblica for a biblical response to HIV,” said Carien Kotze, Biblica’s director for southern Africa since 2021. Neither the response from schools nor the church had slowed the impact of a crisis that caused 330,000 premature deaths in South Africa from 2000-2005, according to the National Institutes of Health. 

The curriculum is in its fourth version, adopted to address a variety of concerns, and now is printed in 40 languages, distributed in 40 countries and has impacted 3 million youth, according to Biblica’s data. It’s especially appropriate in Africa, where about 60% of the population is younger than 25. 
 

Coming to Radio

But Kotze saw additional opportunities in the spoken word. “When we started talking to Trans World Radio, I said to them, ‘You’re the experts. Do with it whatever you want,’” she related. 

TWR has been distributing Bible content and resources from Biblica since the mid-1990s. To adapt and air the Reach4Life content over the airwaves, TWR Kenya signed its agreement with Biblica in November 2023, Chege said. Reach4Life is aired on all six Sifa FM stations and on its livestream Powerline Radio. It was originally recorded in English, but translation of the script into Kiswahili was completed in the fourth quarter of 2025.  

The Kiswahili version proved to have the greater impact, Chege said. 

“Most of our listeners identify more closely with Kiswahili, and the stations airing the program primarily broadcast in that language,” she explained. “We introduced the Kiswahili version in direct response to listener feedback, as many expressed a preference for engaging with the series in Kiswahili for better understanding and connection.” 

In southern Africa, the English program started broadcasting over three radio stations in five countries (Eswatini, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique), with growing interest. 

It also has been presented in Portuguese and isiZulu, said Victor Kaonga, TWR international director for Eastern and South Africa.

A Strong Tool for Evangelism

Reach4Life was developed as a discipleship program, Kotze said, but has proven to be a strong tool for evangelism. According to surveys of Reach4Life participants, 87% shared what they learned with family and friends. 

Evangelism certainly comes into play in Kenya, Chege said. Although Kenya is a majority-Christian nation, the Sifa stations broadcast in places that are primarily Muslim, such as the Lamu archipelago.   

“We are speaking to a majority of young people who are encountering Christ and Christianity for the first time,” she said. “And I think there couldn’t be a better tool to introduce them to this way of life than Reach4Life.”  

Although Reach4Life is designed for 12- to 18-year-olds, it has a wider audience in Kenya, where the constitution describes anyone under the age of 35 as a young person. In any event, Chege said, the program is proving to be equally popular with those older than 35. 
 

Reach4Life in Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi 

In Mozambique, too, the program originally was broadcast in English, but now it is aired in Mozambican Portuguese, the same language used in the New Testament launched in 2025. 

The message she heard on Reach4Life “made me think about the consequences of disagreements in our families,” said Mariana of the Mozambican capital city of Maputo. “This can even bring mourning and promote revenge. But it is good to see that in Christ all of this can be resolved.”  

The largest potential broadcast audiences for Reach4Life are in Zambia, where One Love FM reaches as many as 4 million people; and Malawi, where the potential audience for TWR Malawi is 6 million.  

The feedback from listeners can be poignant. 

“Growing up without a father who abandoned my mother and me was challenging,” wrote Sonfwa from Siavonga in Zambia. “However, today’s message from Luke 15 has opened my heart to God as my father. I wish I had known this message earlier in life, but I’m grateful to have discovered that there is a loving father in heaven who cares for me.”