Community Media Broadcasters: Building Capacities for Amplifying Voices of Rural Women

       Conducted at the UN Headquarters in New York City, this panel was broken up into four panelists all from different parts of the world.  Despite the different contexts they all come from, they all discussed the same thing: using radio to empower women.  The speakers provided representation from Denmark, Sierra Leone, the Philippines, and India. 

       Birgitte Jallov, from Denmark, set the stage by discussing the difference between community radio, commercial radio, and public service radio.  She said that at this panel, they would be talking specifically about community radio, which is a form of radio that is of, for, by, and about the community.  She explained that community radio is “of” the community because it’s part of the community; it’s “for” the community because it’s made for the community; it’s by the people, because it’s produced by the community; lastly, it’s about the community, because, simply, it’s about the community.

       The next speaker, Shelia Katzman from Sierra Leone, talked about her rich radio experience in her country.  She gave a tip to aspiring radio hosts by explaining that they should speak about what they care about; oftentimes in rural communities, rural women may feel like that have little to no voice.  This message was closely aligned with the message of Archana Kapoor (from India).  Archana explained that giving the microphone to a person empowers them, and creates a space for them to distribute their ideas.

Shelia went on to explain that by telling their stories on the radio, women have been able to decrease violence against women, help men to see women as partners, and increase harmony in families.  She explained that the benefit to creating local radio, versus using radio channels from afar to deliver messages, is that people trust local radio channels more and speaking in the native language.
       Lastly, the speaker from the Philippines, Grace Uddin, spoke about a program in the Philippines teaching children how to be radio hosts.  The idea behind this is that radio is a widely used form of distributing news, and teaching children how to broadcast will help create future radio hosts.  By the end of this program, children receive the chance to conduct an actual broadcast.