COMMUNITY RADIOS CONNECTED BY SATELLITE NETWORK IN NEPAL

Association of Community Radio Broadcasters Nepal (ACORAB) has launched Community Information Network (CIN) connecting 105 community radios of Nepal into a single satellite network on 29 th of May 2009, providing a platform for information sharing. The Network will allow the stations to receive news and information from the studios of ACORAB as well as to share information among the stations.

Most of Nepal’s community radios are located in remote areas of the country and hence the options for receiving and sharing of information are few and limited. Internet connectivity is not widespread. Most stations are dependent on dial-up based low speed connectivity. Sharing of content among the stations has been mostly based on exchanging of audio CDs. However, given the regular road blockades pertaining to natural as well as human-made reasons, delivery of CDs has been inefficient.

The satellite network is expected to help the stations overcome these challenges. Through CIN, community radios will be able to share their radio programs and voice clips with other stations in the network. ACORAB has set up a recording studio along with a small but a professional news production team in Kathmandu. It will dispatch news twice, everyday. Participating stations will also receive the news in text to allow them to repackage and localize.

In the next phase, member community radios and ACORAB will work together to produce programs in Kathmandu on the basis of information and content received from the stations. This way, CIN will help to centralize local issues and localize central issues.

The CIN will function in close collaboration with community radios. It will focus on encouraging critical dialogues from local perspective on various current issues such as national identity, democracy, human rights, good-governance, social-cohesion, socialinclusion and social-justice, peace-building, constitution making process, development and other socio-political issues.

In order to ensure a high level of participation of the community radio stations and as part of the CIN plans, ACORAB will work to enhance the capacity of radios by organizing internship opportunities for the staffs of the stations. During internship, local producers and reporters will get change to hone up their skills and knowledge for news and program production.

ACORAB will soon begin to broadcast live, the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly where assembly members are working to write the new constitution of Nepal. The broadcast is expected to increase the level of accountability of the legislators towards their constituencies and local communities. The broadcast will also feed into content creation to enhance dialogue between the policy makers and members of their constituency, with the aim of providing input to the constitution making process.

Source: AMARC-AP Newsletter June 2009