Panic buttons won’t be flashing in the National Community Radio Forum’s (NCRF) Braamfontein studios when 230 radio stations across Africa link up for live and recorded broadcasts of the World Summit on Sustainable Development over the next two weeks.
Thousands of listeners will also be able to tune in to the broadcasts on the Internet.
Linda Mazibuko, the NCRF’s technical director, was at ease earlier this week as he checked the line feeds that link the hub studio to the satellites that will beam the broadcasts during the 10-day summit.
“As far as technical links are concerned there is no panic at all … it’s all systems go,” says Mazibuko, who has been responsible for other satellite link-ups with radio stations in the past.
Five-hourly broadcasts, including panel discussions and daily news bulletins about the summit, are planned in French, English, Portuguese and Spanish.
A team of 30 international community radio journalists and producers has been put together. The English-language group consists of journalists from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Canada, The Netherlands and India. French-speaking journalists are drawn from Mali, Togo and the Gambia. The Portuguese journalists come from Angola and Mozambique, and the Spanish journalists from Ecuador and Costa Rica.
The ambitious R1-million radio link, dubbed Radio Voices Without Frontiers, is a joint initiative of the NCRF and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (Amarc), and is supported by organisations, companies and government departments.
The NCRF and Amarc plan to set up studios at the summit’s three main venues, if they can raise the funds.
At least 32 South African community radio stations will be linked to the summit through the South African Community Radio Information Network and 200 Amarc member stations spread across Africa will link up with the WorldSpace digital satellite platform. Latin American community stations on the Aler satellite network based in Ecuador and listeners in the rest of the world can plug into an Internet audio feed at http://www.amarc.org/vsf.
“This is a very exciting project for us. The right to communicate is fundamental to the development of our communities here in Africa,” says Shingai Nyoka, Amarc’s communications officer for Africa. “We believe that this broadcast provides a unique opportunity for the traditionally marginalised groups of our continent … to articulate their concerns and their aspirations to the world.”
“The NCRF feels that community radio plays a critical role in bringing messages of development to grass-roots communities and the global civil society community, irrespective of where we are located. This is our biggest international project so far,” says Mabalane Mfundisi, the NCRF’s CEO.
“The last big broadcast similar to this one was at the World Conference on Racism in Durban. We have an even stronger team this time around … [and] community radio is making its mark. It’s time for us to live up to the saying that community radio is a tool for development,” says Mfundisi.