Community Radio Efforts Worldwide Receive IREX Support

The growing community radio movement seeks innovative ways to give people voice, using the potential of broadcasting to bridge distances and democratize media. Community radio emphasizes access, participation, volunteerism and simplicity in overcoming the technical and financial hurdles that keep people from avenues of information and communication.

IREX and IREX Europe partners worldwide are engaged in community radio initiatives, from minority ethnic enclaves in Georgia to the industrial city of Zarqa in Jordan to helping the networking of community broadcasters worldwide.

To support the work of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), IREX enabled pioneering broadcasters from Senegal, Kenya, India and Nepal to attend the organization’s international conference in Amman, Jordan. Raghu Mainali, a founder of Radio Sagarmatha in Nepal and now executive director of the Community Radio Support Centre there, said, “It was an opportunity to reconfirm my ideas and beliefs, to renew my commitment and to learn new ideas from others.” Ashish Sen, director of VOICES, a development communications NGO based in Bangalore, India, focused on how community radio can address concerns about access and inclusion in the media, saying, “Access without inclusiveness would be like information without communication.”

Also participating in the conference through the IREX Small Grant Fund were Grace Githaiga, executive director of EcoNews Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, and head of AMARC’s Africa division, and Oumar Seck Ndiaye, director of Radio Oxyjeunes, a station that gives voice to youth from the streets in Dakar, Senegal. Initiatives developed during the conference range from lobbying for regulatory reform to developing community media’s role in disaster management. Community broadcasters from the Middle East and North Africa launched an AMARC chapter during the conference, led by Daoud Kuttab, founder of AmmanNet and long-standing IREX partner.

Through the Jordan Media Strengthening Program, IREX is preparing to launch a project aimed at offering a new local radio station to over a million Jordanians living in and around the industrial city of Zarqa. Despite its size, importance to the national economy, and many challenges associated with poor housing, inadequate environmental controls and a growing population, Zarqa does not yet have its own dedicated radio station. The station is intended to focus on the concerns of residents and, with the help of an Advisory Board of community leaders, help them have a say in the way their city is developed through local newscasts, call-in shows and information programming. AmmanNet is working on the project and will help train the new broadcast and technical staff in Zarqa, as well as oversee the design and installation of radio equipment for the new station. The Jordan Media Strengthening Program is funded by the US Agency for International Development.

In Georgia, IREX Europe, in a partnership led by the BBC World Service Trust with the Tbilisi-based Association Studio Re, is working to establish two independent sustainable community radio stations in the ethnic enclaves of Ninotsminda (Javakheti) and Marneuli (Kvemo Kartli). The stations broadcast predominantly in minority languages and are run by a core team of local journalists with significant input from volunteers both on the programming and managerial side. The European Union-funded project is also supported by the British Embassy Tbilisi Global Conflict Prevention Pool.

Elsewhere, IREX and its partners are working on media law reforms that open the airwaves to community broadcasting or, in countries such as Timor-Leste, encourage its growth and sustainability. Where broadcasting remains strictly controlled by the government, IREX is supporting initiatives exploring Internet-based radio options.