Duration: one hour and thirty minutes

Introduction:
      This one hour and a half session on the Transformative Potential of Community Radio aims to promote community radio as an effective information tool and how it can help promote values for peace and gender
fairness. At the end of the session the participants would have been able to:

• Identify advantages and disadvantages of radio as a medium of mass communication
• Differentiate between public, commercial and community radio
  
• Identify the principles and characteristics of community radio
• Define the transformative potential of community radio
• Share experiences of being part of a community radio and its effective use as an information tool
• Identify possibilities of how community radio can be used as tool towards engendered peace journalism

Session Topics:

• Introductory Activity: Advantages and Disadvantages of Radio
• Transformative Potential of Community Radio
  
• Radio as Medium of Mass Communication
  
• Important Tips for Broadcasting
  
• The Broadcasting Industry
  
• Community Radio as Information Tool 

Infrastructure:

• LCD and computer for power point presentation (or OHP)
  
• Space for small group discussions (which could be separate from the main session hall)

Session Plan:

Activity 1: Radio as a Medium of Mass Communication (Buzz Groups)

    Forming buzz groups is an activity that will facilitate participants sharing on their experience of radio, by identifying its advantages and disadvantages, as well as ways that it has been used to popularize issues in the community. Instructions to the activity are as follows:

• Break the plenary into groups of 4-5
  
• Distribute metacards – 5-6 metacards for each color
  
• Guide Questions for discussion:
  
• What are the advantages of radio compared to other means of communication?
  
• What are the disadvantages of radio compared to other means of communication?
  
• In your experience or observation how has radio been used as an information tool for the community? Identify issues that it helped popularize.
  

Synthesis Points: (after the Group Reports)

• The radio is still the most effective communication tool that is able to reach even the poorest of communities
  
• The disadvantages and advantages of radio operate as important tips to be remembered in broadcasting
  
• Experiences shared of how radio can be used to popularize issues relevant to the community show the transformative potential of radio
  

Topic: Link: Slide Presentation Transformative Potential of Community Radio (Lecture Discussion (ppt file)

Synthesis Points:

    Using the framework of feminist alternative communication, the transformative potential of community radio highlights the roles of women as stakeholders, agents and producers of information that is shared in the community. By women’s involvement, new ways of seeing are shared, construction of meanings and vocabularies that pave way for the creation of values for equality and peace.

Activity 2: Participants' sharing of experiences in being part of a community radio

    Two to three participants may be chosen to share the benefits of and problems of running a community radio. The twenty minute sharing highlights the experiences of participants who are community radio practitioners, and how its transformative potential has been used to popularize issues relevant to the community. It allows sharing on the success and difficulties experienced in operating a community radio. Participants’ profiles on hand may help facilitators identify practitioners among participants.

Hand outs: Link: Slides presentation on Transformative Potential of Community Radio (Print two or four slides per page for handout) (ppt file)

Reference Materials Used:

Internet:

AMARC World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters http://www.amarc.org

Radio Resource Guide for Young Broadcasters http://www.unicef.org/magic/resources/radio_resources.html

Different very useful quality links for organisations who want to start community radio: http://www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/english/community_radio.shtml

Radio for Peace Building in Africa: http://www.radiopeaceafrica.org/

Publications:

What is community radio – A Resource Guide, 116 pages
Published by AMARC Africa and Panos Southern Africa, 1998
ISBN: 0620 22999 3
http://africa.amarc.org/

How to do Community Radio
UNESCO, 2001, 70 pages
Asia-Pacific Bureau for Communication and Information
B-5/29, Safdarjung Enclave
New Delhi – 110029 (India)
http://www.unesco.org/webworld

Community Radio Handbook of the CBAA
Community Broadcasters Association of Australia, 50 chapters, available online http://www.cbaa.org.au/text.php/12.html