Photo Essay: “Women of Pastapur” by Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron

FROM MAZI, from Communication for Social Change Consortium http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org

In impoverished villages surrounding Zaheerabad, India, a handful of illiterate Dalit women have taken communication tools into their hands—specifically, video and radio. Their goal: autonomy and self-reliance for their communities.

They experience three kinds of discrimination: They are women, poor and of the lowest caste. By using video and radio, they have gained respect in their communities and have contributed to development and cultural identity.

They are “barefoot” reporters and producers of documentary films that contribute to community discussions on cultural issues and traditions that affect the lives of women and all community members in one of India’s poorest areas.

Their effort is an initiative of the Deccan Development Society, which works with rural women who are a part of the DDS sanghams, community groups. Most of the women are Dalits.

P.V. Sateesh, director of the DDS, says the project seeks to achieve sustainable development, inclusion and participation. “When we started 25 years ago,” Sateesh says, “we were looking for the autonomy to produce crops, autonomy over seeds and autonomy over our natural resources. When later we analysed the impacts of globalisation on the poor, we added … market autonomy and autonomy over media. This was about ten years ago when we started using video and then radio”.

Dalit women operate Sangham Radio, one of the first community radio stations authorized in India under a November 2006 Indian law. Although it has not yet broadcast, the station has produced 400 hours of programmes on gender, education, agriculture, health, music, local culture, weeding and cropping.

The community radio centre opened in 1996 with a 100-watt transmitter that can reach a 30-km radius and cover up to 100 villages. UNESCO has supported the station as part of its "Women Speak to Women" project.

“General” Narsamma, one of the two community radio operators, says, “If we had not learned to operate the radio, we probably would still have been daily labourers. Now, there is more respect for us in the community. Today, everyone recognizes us. They say, ‘Hey, they work for the radio.’ Earlier no one noticed us.”

Narsamma appears on the cover of India’s first book on community radio, Other Voices, written by Vinod Pavarala and Kanchan K. Malik.

The Communication for Social Change Consortium has produced a video documentary Women of Pastapur. Alfonso Gumucio, who directed the production and did the camera work, followed them through small villages as they shot a new film on the subject of traditional herbal medicine. See below for information on how to order Women of Pastapur.

Two filmmakers, Lakshmamma and Pula, talk with Ramullamma, in Shamshadinpur Village, before they begin filming her at work.

Lakshmamma says: “Ramullamma distributes locally-produced medicines from plants to people from within and outside the village. By shooting and editing a film that captures her activities and airing it on TV channels, we can let others know and understand how this lady makes medicines and sells it to many people.”

Lakshmamma says, “We must be choosy about our shots and use the tripod to get steady shots. We follow up each long shot with a close-up so you can see the vessels of herbs and their contents clearly.”

Before interviewing Ramullamma, Lakshmamma tells her, “You have to tell all this, nicely. Tell your name and your village’s name, okay? Sit properly. You are going to be on TV.”

Ramullamma has learned the science of herbal medicine and helps her community cope with commons illness. She says, “Pills made from ginger, pepper and mint can cure oedema. Dry and powdered gooseberry is given to cure piles. For white patches on the skin, I give pills made from neem leaves anddhurda gunta (itching) leaves. I give papaya fruit seeds to children suffering with loose motions.”

Many women visit Ramullamma’s home, asking her for advice. Others come to observe her as she works.

Ramullamma says, “I help childless couples conceive at Usurakaipalli. There’s an activist here and she was not conceiving. I asked her to visit me after a month. She did and now she is eight months pregnant.”

The women of Sangham Radio—filmakers and radio operators—continue to document activities of villagers as part of an ongoing effort to bring the voices of the community to a larger audience. In this way they are not only helping achieve autonomy and self-reliance for their communities but also gaining respect from those around them.

Report and photos by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_Gumucio_Dagron

Grassroots Comics - A development communication tool
By Leif Packalen and Sharad Sharma

Grassroots Comics is published by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in May 2007. The material for the book is complied from the experiences of World Comics Finland and World Comics India with the co-operation of many different organizations, movements and activists. The book comprises of examples of grassroots comics, practical manuals and photographs from Asia, Africa and other countries. The book has a lot of practical advice on how to go about making grassroots comics, how to organise comics workshops, etc. It has 160 pages. The complete book is available online as a pdf-file. The file can be downloaded from this website http://worldcomicsindia.com or from the Ministry's website. The file is 15 MB so it can take several minutes to download, depending on the speed of your connection.

14 Community Radio Stations On Air for the First Time in Bangladesh

Community Radio for Development: Voices for the voiceless

Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC), since its inception, has been advocating with the government and with other organizations for the promotion of Community Radio to address critical social issues at community level, such as poverty and social exclusion, empowerment of marginalized rural groups and catalyze democratic process in decision making and ongoing development efforts.

Ministry of Information, Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh has approved 2 more Community Radio Initiators for installation and operation of community radio in Bangladesh on 20 May, 2010. Now total 14 Community Radio Stations are going to On Air first time in Bangladesh.

The main objective of community radio is to provide livelihood related information to the rural communities in an understandable way. Agriculture, education, health, disaster, women and child issues, market price, services, etc. will be cover in the community radio for the community people. 

Bazlu
AHM. Bazlur Rahman-S21BR
Chief Executive Officer
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
Head – Community Radio Academy

House: 13/1, Road:2, Shaymoli, Dhaka-1207
Post Box: 5095, Dhaka 1205 Bangladesh
Phone: 88-02-9130750, 88-02-9138501
01711881647 Fax: 88-02-9138501-105
E-mail: ceo@bnnrc.net, bnnrc@bd.drik.net         www.bnnrc.net

_______________________

Congressman John Hall Speaks Up for Local Media

US Congressman John Hall was the lead singer in the group Orleans, whose hit, Dance with Me, has been recorded by many other bands. This is from his web site: John has been around the music world, from writing and directing music on Broadway to touring with Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, from producing Bonnie Raitt's third album to writing the smash Orleans hit "Still The One."
John Hall testified at a meeting about local media held at the FDR Center in Hyde Park, NY in 2006.  Also present were local media activist Andi Novick, Congressman Maurice Hinchey and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps.

Interviews with Deccan Community Media Women

P.V. Satheesh, Participatory Video Pioneer

 
http://www.ddsindia.com
Participation and Beyond : Handing Over the Camera 
By P V Satheesh, Deccan Development Society, Hyderabad, India 
In order to start understanding Participatory Video we may have to look at it from a number of perspectives simultaneously. It may in fact become more and more difficult to separate PV, as it is being gradually enclosed into certain structures of definition, from a number of precursor efforts which may have more than one element of PV as it is currently understood.
•From the participation perspective 
•From the literacy perspective 
•From the media perspective 
It is needless here to say that all these perspectives together have the possibility of shaping PV as it gets more and more structured in definitions......  
The Media Perspective 
Media as an issue of control has been at the heart of animated debates all through the history of media. It is quite ironical that the Press which was called the Fourth Estate, making it the fourth leg along with the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary became as distant from people as the other wings did. This was truer in terms of representation of the excluded sections of population. Particularly those who were not in tune with the dominant discourse of the times. The trends became clearer as the media ownership and big business became synonymous. With the growth of electronic media and the megabucks in terms of the advertisements it needed to survive, the gap interests became so thin as almost indistinguishable. When uncomfortable questions about the ownership and the need to move media from information domain to communication domain where communication was described as bidirectional, horizontal and participatory, started getting asked, the governments which supported began to get hostile. Nothing can so dramatically illustrate this than the McBride Report commissioned by UNESCO in the '70s. The report and the radical discourses that surrounded UNESCO debates around that time were so revolutionary for its times [especially the fact that it came out of a staid and respectable UNESCO] that the rattled governments of USA and UK actually stopped funding UNESCO for the next ten years, to spite it. [MacBride Report was one of a series of manifestations of a radicalised UNESCO to the utter distaste of the USA. The report was the proverbial last straw on the US camel's back]. Since then a continuous battle has been raging between mainstream media and people's movements to gain control over people's voices across the globe. However, with more of the economic right wing with their slogans of Market is the King coming into power in large parts of the world and a triumphant Reagan-Thatcher combination at the vanguard of the western democracies and a host of right wing governments in Latin America supported by the USA, the battle seemed to be over in the eighties.  
The scene changed quite radically with the installation of an anti-apartheid regime lead by Mandela in South Africa, the defeat of Marcos in the Phillippines, the rise of Zapatismo in Mexico, the civil society movements in Nordic countries appearing to usher in a new life for people's voices and their own media in the early nineties. But all these gains seem to be getting offset by the rapidity with which globalisation is sweeping the world. As a result, just when the poorer and disempowered sections of Third World populations is managing to emerge from the shadows and make their first efforts to participate in the national governance, it appears that sovereign states themselves are disappearing. This globalisation-created situation is frightening. 
The world, definitely the Third World, is all set to be taken over by the transnational corporations. This casino capitalism ushered in by TNCs is being established by the media supported by them and in turn supporting them. The avalanche of media channels and media tools signals this arrival and with that, the entrenchment of a new global village controlled by Pepsis and Coca Colas. And terrifyingly enough, these media are becoming a huge success. Within a span of a few short years they have been able to design and create a new all consumer population across the globe. Under this unrelenting attack of the mainstream media [irrespective of their ownership], poorer and the less privileged people are on the verge of completing losing their voice. The media is by the elite, for the elite and of the elite. It is not just reporting the elitisation of the Society. It is making sure that the elitisation happens. Far more dangerously the newest trend started by Sony of producers of media technology also becoming the producers of media content. The traditional structures which supported their voices and views do not exist anymore. How can this media imperialism be challenged? How can people's voices be restored to them? Can P V be a tool for this? 
From the Participation Perspective 
Where is PRA situated just now, at the beginning of a new millenium? Is it looking a bit tired? Is the family of approaches getting a bit inbred? Losing its lustre? Cleverly manipulated by some of its high priests in the South? Is the sound of PRA hymns becoming less inspired/inspiring? Can Participatory Video be seen as a reaction to make participatory methods more transparently people-owned in contrast to a large part of PRA practice that seems to accept the term facipulation as a natural thing to do? In the history of PRA there has been a constant search for techniques and methods. Refining and fine tuning have been going on constantly. At one point of horror [when it was rudely realised that there has been a befuddling array of techniques being created and emphasised, which confused rather than clarified participation] there was a move to deemphasise techniques and lay more emphasis on B & A. Such shifting discourses in participation have been necessitated by certain practises where "IPRA is a structured process that consists of a sequence of particular tools with defined outcomes." In spite of this special emphasis laid on B & A, for the hardened practitioners B & A is another tool to manipulate. It is an act of being nice to people in the field and go back and carry on business as usual. In spite of the inherent power of PRA, in practice it has been so totally emasculated from its political possibilities. Several times PRA is described as spiritual. It almost sounds like an intentional character PRA is asked to wear so that in its spirituality it can forget to address fundamental structural patterns of dominance without addressing which participation becomes meaningless. Critical issues like representation, mediation and authenticity, therefore, seem to have been slipping out of the domain of PRA. In this context, can we see PV as a practice emerging to rescue participation from such manipulation? By its nature PV offers a possibility of self representation of people without the need to use the written word and an intermediary text for negotiation.  
From the Literacy Perspective 
There have been constant debates in Literacy circles on how the empowerment aspect of literacy gets lost when it is detached from its Freiraian character and used mechanically. Which it seems is happening in most parts of India. Literacy often gets imposed from outside with no contextual relation to the populations it is intended for, as against being allowed to grow organically as a part of people's lives and contexts. The extraordinary emphasis being placed on the skill of literacy which excludes a lot of rural women from a generation earlier and makes them impotent. Even worse, makes them feel like second class citizens. Has video the capability of being a great leveller between privileged urban people with their formal educational background and non-privileged, non literate rural people? Especially in terms of learning capabilities. Will it offer the same handicaps/advantages to both these sections? In that sense is it an equaliser? Literacy taught the way it is now, can never enable these people to make the kind of interventions they are capable of making in any system of governance. Oral cultures of most southern countries are excluded from the discourse of literacy. How can such rich oral cultures be sacrificed on the altar of literacy? Who gains from literacy : people or the mediators? Are there newer ways of bringing the non literate rural people, particularly women into the debates and practice of governance system. To amplify their voices and make them heard in the policy and other circles? Can Community Media, especially video be such a tool?  
The beginnings of Participatory Video 
Contrary to what one would expect, the early beginnings of the community - controlled media came from the mecca of manipulative mega media, the United States. [US law for a proportion of free media access to communities] However when we look at the history of cinema, we see a number of attempts to move cinema from an auteur's statement to a people's voices. There have been dedicated movements devoted to this. But the real horizontal, community-produced PV came from the inititative of the National Film Board of Canada in a project called Challenge for Change. The Fogo Experiment as it is known today, handed over a portapack -- a portable half inch television camera/recorder to the indigenous fishing communities to express their own issues and start a dialogue with the distant Canadian Government which had no time to visit and talk to them. This was a huge success and is a landmark in the history of activist cinema. In succession came a number of new initiatives in Latin America where the political pot is always boiling and every new initiative for self representation is either born or adopted quickly. Very interestingly two initiatives came from India, one relatively less known from an organisation called CENDIT which, for the intensively participator vision it had, carried a very misleading name Centre for Development of Instructional Television. The other and more well known initiative is Video SEWA in Gujarat, India. There have been some stirrings of PV in other parts of Asia especially in the Phillippines and the most well documented Oxfam experiment in Vietnam. In Africa the South African underground Alternative Television networks have contributed a huge amount of exciting work in representative television. One of the more recent but a very powerful and defining experiment was in Tanzania with the Mtwara Media Centre and the well-known fishermen PV project. It would be interesting to study whether the PV made any strong links with the local political and developmental history or emerged as an expression of eager activists. Was this kind of a socio-political vacuum [?] gave rise to a number of conflicting definitions of PV is also worthwhile looking at.[But beyond the scope of this paper]  
How is PV perceived Globally? 
•As Therapy,  
•As Activism  
•As Empowerment 
•As a Process vis a vis a Product  
What has it been used for till now? 
•As a Construction of identity 
•Policy dialoguing 
•Policy impacting 
•Raising intra and inter community debates  
•For cultural preservation,  
•Exchange of video letters;  
•video journals 
In these cases, planning processes structured by PV have expanded participatory process rather than attempting to replicate it. Access to video has expanded the pro-cesses both vertically, through policy dialogue, and horizontally, through mobil-ising political support for locally articulated causes and claims. As a complement to or extension of PRA methodology, video has helped to resist co-option of local agendas and de-emphasise the focus on technical solutions in favour of more important institutional obstacles to development. Through letting grassroots groups and individuals speak for themselves, PV fuels political struggles over democratic rights and power. This can be challenging to powerful stakeholders and attract attention from politicians and policy makers, while disturbing the predictable project cycles of development agencies afraid to rock the boat. But then - How long can development workers continue to talk about participation and empowerment without allowing people to speak for themselves? How do we go beyond PV and really hand over the camera and mike to the community?  
DDS & People's Video 
One of the initiatives which seems to have come closest to this concept has been the DDS initiative which I would like to explain very briefly here. The Deccan Development Society [DDS] is a non governmental rural development organisation working in the Medak District of Andhra Pradesh with over 4000 dalit rural women for the last 15 years. In 1997, the Society took up the task of working on community controlled media as part of a UNESCO project called Learning Without Frontiers. The basic experience of the project is described below. DDS is a grassroots organisation working with Sanghams (village level groups) of poor women most of who are dalits. The society has a vision of consolidating these village groups into vibrant organs of primary local governance and federate them into a strong pressure lobby for women, poor and dalits. The Society facilitates a host of continuing dialogues and debates with the people, conducts educational and training programmes to try and translate this vision into a reality. The Deccan Development Society is also trying to reverse the historical process of degradation of the environment and people's livelihood systems in this region through a string of activities like 
•permaculture 
•community grain fund 
•community green fund 
•community gene fund etc. 
The way of doing this has also been structuring a A SERIES OF AUTONOMIES for people so that they gain conclusive control over critical aspects of their lives. These have been in the areas of : •Autonomy on their agriculture •Autonomy on the seeds •Autonomy on their food security •Autonomy on their natural resources These controls gained by the communities has inspired two larger controls which are both local and global in nature have come into being. These are the controls over market and media.  
Communicating through video 
We began a series of video workshops for rural women. The Phase I started from January 1998. Each workshop took four days. Spread over eight months these workshops trained a total of seven women of whom four are non-literate. Of these seven women, two are students, four are farm laborers and one is a DDS worker. All of them are Dalits in an age group of 16-35 years. (The workshops started with a total of eleven persons, ten women and one man. But four of them dropped out during various phases of the workshops and seven made it to all the workshops.) In the Phase II we have been working with a group of rural women and men from the South Asian region. This includes two persons each from Nepal, India and Sri Lanka and five women from Bangladesh. The women trained in the Phase I gave the following reasons for choosing to learn video production: 
Why Video : their expectations 
We would like to let our issues known outside (Ippapally Mallamma) 
Our news must go outside (Zaheerabad Punyamma) 
We are working on the Gene Bank in our village. Several times you people come to shoot our work. But there are seasons when it is very important to shoot. At that time you people may not be available. Therefore when you people do not come, we can do our own recording and give it to you. (Humnapur Laxmi) 
When big government people come to our village, we would like to record what they tell us. That becomes a document for us. (Eedulapalle Manjula) 
So that we can communicate with people in other sanghams. Whenever some events take place in our sanghams, you people come to video it. When you don't come, we have to wait for you. Instead we can do the recording ourselves and take it out.(Pastapur Narsamma) 
To photograph; marriages etc.(Bopanpalli Nagamma) 
How can we tell about the work we are doing? To know whether it (the video) can record what we talk and say To understand what parts it (the video) has know whether it records from a distance; how to make pictures big and small; how to make sound big and small; Methodology Group discussion Visual explanation : drawings on the blackboard of concepts and terms. Participatory Glossary Formation : Creation of a new technical vocabulary in the local dialect using the women's words and their experiences. Creation of learning games to bring home the concepts. Hands on training in using the camera and editing the pictures Group analysis of each other's work to facilitate a group learning process What did they learn? Parts of a video camcorder and how to operate each of them Use of a camera tripod Shots and image sizes Camera frame and simple principles of picture composition Camera distance, camera angle and camera movement Simple microphones and simple techniques of sound recording. Shot breakdown for a simple shoot Plotting camera positions for a simple shoot Logging the shoot and finding editing points Executing an edit on a VHS system On the basis of this experience we can deduce a series of Video can be a very effective tool for use by non-literate rural people to express themselves to the outside world Being non literate is no barrier in learning video as a mode of expression. Therefore instead of literacy being pushed down the throats of adult rural women and men, new media of expressions can be found. Non literate women can turn into excellent videographers. Their traditional narrative and pictorial understanding of the world around them can find wonderful expression in the videos made by them. The trainers in these workshops who have long experiences in training professional television practitioners in the Afro Asian region, were struck by the ease and quickness with which non literate women were able to learn and use video. In many cases they started wondering whether literacy is after all a barrier in learning new media of expression. In their ability to understand and express through video the non literate women were not even a slight shade inferior to their urban counterparts who come to media education with formidable academic backgrounds. FUTURE Extend the skills into programme making : conceptualising ideas, scripting and editing for communicating with the sanghams and outside world. The women should produce short films regularly on agricultural practices, permaculture, community leadership, health, childcare, forestry, animal husbandry and a whole range of issues. Rural, non literate women are able to tell their stories in their own words and focus on issues of their concern. The impact of this will be seen when DDS can persuade the local television networks [Andhra Pradesh has three local language satellite television neworks : two private and one public] to have a regular time slot. If this is made possible they will be first group of rural women who will be regularly reporting their own stories to large groups of viewers of the mainstream media. FILMS MADE Our Balwadies A film on the pre schools of DDS sanghams Community Biodiversity Registry Documentation of the community biodiversity knowledge through video to serve as a legal document against biopiracies Dalit Watersheds Documentation of the process of the way dalit women have designed and executed their special watersheds Sangham PRAs The extensive PRA process through which the 70 sanghams of DDS designed their development plan for the years 2000 - 2003. Biodiversity Fair The unique biodiversity fair conducted by the DDS in which the 4000 women members came together to take a collective look at the wealth of seed and crop diversity in their environments, analyse them and take a pledge to conserve and enhance this diversity. Short news capsules for World Food Day, Women's Day and such occassions and submitted them to the India's national television system : Doordarshan and to Eenadu TV, a local satellite channel which covers about 10 million Telugu homes. In more ways than one, the DDS efforts have addressed the larger issue of globalisation through local actions. These efforts have addressed the need and possibility of building on local strengths to face the assault of globalising economies. Assignments for the Young Asia television, FAO, IPGRI, IIED, Farmers Jury on GM Crops, UN Habitat etc. Not primarily because of their great technical superiority. But the authenticity of their cinema. The simple way of looking at truth and a direct way of dealing with people, both of which are fascinating to say the least.

Our Balwadies A film on the pre schools of DDS sanghams

Community Biodiversity Registry Documentation of the community biodiversity knowledge through video to serve as a legal document against biopiracies

Dalit Watersheds Documentation of the process of the way dalit women have designed and executed their special watersheds

Sangham PRAs The extensive PRA process through which the 70 sanghams of DDS designed their development plan for the years 2000 - 2003.

Biodiversity Fair The unique biodiversity fair conducted by the DDS in which the 4000 women members came together to take a collective look at the wealth of seed and crop diversity in their environments, analyse them and take a pledge to conserve and enhance this diversity.

Short news capsules for World Food Day, Women's Day and such occassions and submitted them to the India's national television system : Doordarshan and to Eenadu TV, a local satellite channel which covers about 10 million Telugu homes.

In more ways than one, the DDS efforts have addressed the larger issue of globalisation through local actions. These efforts have addressed the need and possibility of building on local strengths to face the assault of globalising economies. Assignments for the Young Asia television, FAO, IPGRI, IIED, Farmers Jury on GM Crops, UN Habitat etc. Not primarily because of their great technical superiority. But the authenticity of their cinema. The simple way of looking at truth and a direct way of dealing with people, both of which are fascinating to say the least.

Undate on Radio Victoria in El Salvador

Greetings Radio Victoria Friends!!!!

First of all i would like to say that we have not received any threats or sabotages since January.  And we have received many visits and expressions of support:

- various delegations have come to hear first hand what the Radio has been experiencing and how we have been responding to these difficult situations (Voces on the Border, Sister Cities, the International Solidarity Center, journalists from Spain, Germany and Nicaragua, the School for International Training, researchers from Alaska, university students).

- we have been interviewed on many national radios and some TV and been called  for interviews on international radios in USA, Canada, Argentina, Mexico and some in Europe!!

- we received a workshop from Psychologist for the People from Italy.

- we received a workshop on Security and how to make our own Security Plan from UDEFEGUA (the Guatemalan Defense of Human Rights Unit)

- we received a workshop on Informative Technology Security, how to keep our computers and networks safer also from UDEFEGUA.

- we received another workshop from UNDEFEGUA on Mental Health and Political Violence.

- we received an anonymous grant to help with security issues in Cabañas.

- we helped to plan and carry out a "Solidarity with the People of Cabañas and No to Metallic Mining" event in the park of Victoria during the Mons. Romero Anniversary Week in March with many national and international delegations, over a thousand people attended.

- we received a small grant from Journalist Helping Journalists in Munich, Germany

- we applied for and were granted a one year scholarship from the Hamburger Stiftung Foundation for Isabel Gamez to live one year in Hamburg, Germany with her 9 year old son. It is a grant for her to rest and recuperate, she can study or work with organizations if she wants but can also just take time for herself, all expenses paid.

- we are participating in a project directed towards women, youth and alternative  communications media in Cabañas, which includes improving the Radio's infrastructure, expanding our broadcasting coverage, re-establishing and re-enforcing skills for our Community Correspondent Network and Community Radio-Listeners Groups, audience surveys and training for the entire Radio team in terms of learning to put into practice the focus areas we have defined (Human Rights, Gender Equality, the Environment, Cultural Identity and Participation).

- we met with the Organization of American States' Freedom of Expression Relator who mentioned our case in her 2009 report and participated in a workshop on freedom of expression with her and people throughout Central and South America.

So, we are doing well, feeling good. Still feel those shadows, still looking over our shoulders, still have some personal guards and police protection at night and on weekends. Still have people who cannot return home to live. I guess you could say our lives have been marked forever. But we are more convinced than ever that Radio Victoria is an important project, that it plays a role in the communities and continues to grow and improve.

AND we still have great needs. We were very excited to learn that we would be participating in the project:  "Strengthening Popular Organizations and Local Media's Organizational Capacities and Political Incidence for the Exercise of an Equitative Citizens' Participation". This project comes from the Basque Country Government through an organization called Paz y Solidaridad (Peace and Solidarity).

So, we need to come up with our contribution to the project, which includes the land we have, the office and building, all the equipment we now have, etc.  BUT we also have to pay for all the unskilled labor for putting the wall around our property, building a cistern and clean-up area with 2 more bathrooms and the tower to expand our broadcast coverage.

This is around $20,000.00 !!!  oh, bejeebers!! so we have around $4,000.00 we can put to that, and our NGO, ADES is trying to come up with a part, but we need to do a campaign to raise money, once again. I mean we are always on a shoestring and fortunately people believe in us and some few send us donations every year, others come and visit and leave a collaboration, we sell t-shirts to others and we are working on a fund-raising plan. Well, one of my tasks in that fund-raising plan is to write this letter with this very petition.

We need:
   - 15 people to give a thousand dollars,  or
   - a thousand people to give $15.00,   or
   - something in between !!!

To donate to Radio Victoria:


CHECKS DIRECTLY TO RADIO VICTORIA:
Mail your checks made out to Radio Victoria to:
ARPAS
Pasaje El Rosal # 117
Colonia Miramonte Pte.
San Salvador, El Salvador

PAYPAL WITH A CREDIT CARD:
Go to International Partners' website:  www.internationalpartners.org     and click on "Donate Funds"
Look under "Step 2: Choose your method of payment" - click where it says "Donate by credit card using Paypal"
Where it says "Designation" use the drop down window and choose Project and in the next window where it says "Name" put "Radio Victoria"


FOR TAX DEDUCTIBLE CHECKS:Mail your check made out to International Partners WITH RADIO VICTORIA ON THE SUBJECT LINE and send to :

International Partners
1320 Fenwick Lane
Suite 400
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

‘There is a narrative that’s missing’ Laura Flanders tells grassroots radio gathering

Calling the Obama administration "a veneer of new backed up by the same old same old," Flanders took shots across the political spectrum garnering bursts of applause with her characteristic mix of humor and breaking news.

She stressed that there is a failure in the media to report on important news from the perspective of the public, and insisted that those stories can be told better at the grassroots level. "There is a narrative that's missing," Flanders insisted. "Rupert Murdoch bought the narrative when he paid $5 billion for Wall Street Journal... And we are being played and played and played and played."

Her most recent book Blue Grit looked at an upsurge in grassroots activism during the previous presidential administration. She said Friday night that there was more progressive politics than anything reflected in the Democratic party. On keeping President Obama accountable to those who elected him she said, "We're not doing any better job than the civilians of Afghanistan."

She broke the news of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposing the elimination of $12 billion in California welfare spending, which she said would affect 1.4 million people. She talked about the controversial new climate bill, the 27 drilling licenses approved since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and said sometimes Congressional hearings can make good viewing on CSPAN.  However, Flanders exclaimed, "It's not Congressional hearings we need into Massey or BP or Goldman Sachs. We need court hearings. We need some of these people taken away in chains."

Clearly, Flanders enjoyed the crowd's reactions to her key points, and she made some statements that are more politically radical than her image, including encouraging one pirate radio advocate that California's budget crisis could limit enforcement. However, her most outrageous statement came up near the end of the speech (available in full below).

"Why don't you do what Oklahoma wants to do with people who want abortions?" she asked rhetorically. "You can be strapped to a gurney and required to listen to the heartbeat of your fetus, as if this had never occurred to you before, that there was a heartbeat there. What if we strapped some derivatives traders into those stirrups, made them put on that gown, and listen to the high-pitched squeals of people who can't pay their mortgages? What if we strapped the folks who are responsible at British Petroleum and Halliburton and the Interior Secretary and forced them to listen to the pleas of people who have lost their entire livelihoods on the Gulf Coast?"

The crowd of volunteers and staff for commercial-free, independent radio stations around the continent cheered her on, enjoying the mood in the rundown old movie theater in downtown Garberville, CA.

Passion is not proprietary

Hosted by the Southern Humboldt County community radio station KMUD, the fifteenth annualGrassroots Radio Conference brought together hundreds of broadcast enthusiasts for a weekend of workshops and skill-shares. Topics included community journalism, legal compliance, technical wizardry, and social justice.

Maka Munoz of Palabra Radio and Ana Martina of El Otro Lado began their workshop on building a network for immigrant-rights radio content by asking attendees to share stories from home. The group of two dozen heard about inaccurate media portrayals, a controversial gang injunction, widespread profiling, and the separation of families by detention and deportation. Representatives from 15 immigrant radio projects will converge at the upcoming Allied Media Conference (June 17-20 in Detroit).

Pete Tridish and Maggie Avener of Prometheus Radio offered insight into how the airwaves are being reshaped in response to new technologies, and worked with the attendees to strategize about ensuring the grassroots has a place on tomorrow's spectrum. Rip Robbins of KSVR Mt Vernon, WA and Elizabeth Robinson KCSB Santa Barbara, CA supplied information on limits to on-air expression. Low-budget stations have to be careful to avoid sanctions from the FCC, the IRS or the law.

Compliance with radio royalty structures supporting musicians were explained by Clay Leander ofKPFA Berkeley and attorney Michael Couzens. SoundExchange collects royalties for labels and artists from webcasters. Congress has been lobbied hard about the Performance Rights Act, which seeks to force broadcasters to pay royalties to performers, not just songwriters and copyright holders.

David Pakman explained his production process, syndication, outreach, marketing and value added content. He is host and producer of Midweek Politics, a political talk show with 40 TV affiliates and 40 radio affiliates. He Dan Roberts has produced The Shortwave Report off-the-grid since 1997. He demonstrated the basic equipment he uses to share international perspectives gleaned from shortwave transmissions. His program airs on dozens of community radio affiliates in North America. Both programs are made available free online.

Govinda Dalton and Christina Aanestad of Mendocino County-based Earthcycles.net showed off their veggie oil-powered remote broadcasting studio. The converted school bus is home to studio equipment, LPFM antenna, satellite dish for web streaming uplink, wind turbine, solar panels, even a wood stove inside the bus. KMUD also tours inside their emergency-response broadcast trailer, which was parked outside conference headquarters all weekend.

Claude Marks of the Freedom Archives demonstrated projects that re-purpose historical archives of community radio and social justice movements. "Healthy programming has to have roots," he said. Community radio reporters were embedded in the movements of the fifties, sixties and seventies, not with the military. "It's a subjugated history," Marks says. "The movements were attacked. So last year we anticipated the repression of Black Panthers by producing our documentary Legacy of Torture and that meant that the press couldn't just run with the cops' story."

Cointelpro 101, the new film by the Freedom Archives, will debut at the US Social Forum (June 22-26 in Detroit). Marks is wary of society's short-term memory, seeking to protect the stories of uprisings and dissidence from misinformed representations. And he also hopes to inspire new generations of community journalists to learn of traditions of resistance and have the courage to risk getting into the line of fire to tell important stories. He says, "The history isn't all made in the studio or over the phone."

This audio is from RAW STORY's Gavin Dahl, uploaded May 16, 2010.

http://rawreplaymedia.com/media/2010/1005/LauraFlanders_GRC.mp3

COMMUNITY GROUPS URGE FCC TO STRENGTHEN LOCAL, PUBLIC MEDIA

CALL FOR ENFORCEMENT OF LOCALISM RULES
WASHINGTON (May 13, 2010) -- Hundreds of community groups and local residents from across the country urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week to strengthen local democracy, media diversity and public safety by supporting the nation's largest network of community-based media organizations -- Public, Educational and Government (PEG) Access cable TV centers.
"As local newspapers close, media companies consolidate, and national broadcasters dominate radio & television, PEG Access centers are increasingly the only source of community news, civic programming, diverse views and local emergency information," said Alliance for Communications Democracy (ACD) President Rob Brading of MetroEast Community Media in Gresham, Oregon.
As the FCC takes the pulse on media in America with its Future of Media proceeding, ACD, a 22-year-old coalition of local media groups, sounded the alarm that the FCC must take decisive action today to ensure that tomorrow's media landscape includes local voices and community access to media infrastructure.
ACD called on the FCC to enforce laws that prevent cable and video giants from discriminating against local PEG channels. ACD specifically urged the FCC to take action against AT&T's U-verse cable system that degrades PEG quality and functionality.
"There is a very real threat to our democratic institutions and way of life if there is not a sufficiently broad range of opinions expressed in the media and there is no practical means by which the average citizen can participate in the public dialogue." said Dr. Laura Linder, a professor of communication at Marist College in New York.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski launched the Future of Media proceeding "to assess whether all Americans have access to vibrant, diverse sources of news and information that will enable them to enrich their lives, their communities and our democracy."
The Chairman's call for comments was a met by outpouring of voices describing how the nation's 3,000 PEG Access centers are critical to local democracy and civic participation in communities nationwide.
###
ALLIANCE FOR COMMUNICATIONS DEMOCRACY
http://theacd.org/
acd@mnn.org

Sinpare: Hip Hop from Kenya

O

Over the last five years Sinpare has continued to work with other young hip hop artists, poet and activists, not only to perform but organize peace concerts and does very useful community work. For instance in early 2008 at the height of the post election violence, Sinpare used his own resources to stage an audacious peace concert in the heart of Kangemi, appealing to ghetto youth to shun violence and uphold inter-ethnic harmony because they all shared the same a common Kenyan identity. On the same issue of Kenyan identity Sinpare has been adamant and passionate he usually eschews his given birth names in favor of his stage name as a protest at the rampant tribal habit of pigeon holing Kenyans based on their surnames.
There is a video Sinpare composed 8years ago that eerily fore told of the 2008 violent clashes in Kenya. The song Jivunie Ukenya “Be proud of your Kenyan identity” opens up with a group of urban youth accosted by policemen doing their nightly patrols. One by one each youth identifies which tribe he comes from when asked. It is only the one played by Sinpare himself who identifies himself as a “Kenyan”. This intro then leads to a musical denunciation of tribalism and the politically motivated clashes instigated by the elite who divide Kenyans a long ethic lines. Other songs of note by Sinpare include militant revolution featuring the late Angel “Angela Wainaina” and Ran-D and One more step from the album mental revolution, more fire from the album Mabepari and wololo yaye from the album arm too Korrupt.ver the last five years Sinpare has continued to work with other young hip hop artists, poet and activists, not only to perform but organize peace concerts and does very useful community work. For instance in early 2008 at the height of the post election violence, Sinpare used his own resources to stage an audacious peace concert in the heart of  Kangemi, appealing to ghetto youth to shun violence and uphold inter-ethnic harmony because they all shared the same a common Kenyan identity.  On the same issue of Kenyan identity Sinpare has been adamant and passionate he usually eschews his given birth names in favor of his stage name as a protest at the rampant tribal habit of pigeon holing Kenyans based on their surnames.
There is a video Sinpare composed 8years ago that eerily fore told of the 2008 violent clashes in Kenya. The song Jivunie Ukenya “Be proud of your Kenyan identity” opens up with a group of urban youth accosted by policemen doing their nightly patrols. One by one each youth identifies which tribe he comes from when asked.  It is only the one played by Sinpare himself who identifies himself as a “Kenyan”. This intro then leads to a musical denunciation of tribalism and the politically motivated clashes instigated by the elite who divide Kenyans a long ethic lines. Other songs of note by Sinpare include militant revolution featuring the late Angel “Angela Wainaina” and Ran-D and One more step from the album mental revolution, more fire from the album Mabepari  and wololo yaye from the album arm too Korrupt.

People Powered Radio

Community TV Hearings in Canada

Rogers’ Testimony at Community TV Hearings Conflicts with Testimony of Ordinary CanadiansOttawa (May 4/2010) In its presentation before the CRTC yesterday as part of the seven-day hearing into the future of community television, Rogers made several key statements that conflict with the testimony of previous witnesses.
Chairman von Finckenstein thanked the Rogers panel for its presentation by saying, "I have heard nothing but good things about Rogers Cable TV during the last week. I congratulate you... At least the people that appeared before us feel that you are meeting the need of community TV."
In fact, many intervenors last week criticized the cable giant for curtailing access by the public to their studios and for closing channels.
Jennifer Mawhinney from Fredericton testified on Friday that, "While the public is permitted to suggest shows for each season, I've only seen series pitched by employees make it to air."
Colette Watson, Vice President for Rogers claimed that "close to 60%" of the programming on Rogers’ Ottawa channel was "access programming" (made by members of the public). Scrutiny of Rogers’ Ottawa schedule posted on-line, however, reveals that almost all the daily shows that fill up the programming schedule list Rogers employees as producers.
Perhaps of more concern are the station closures. While New Brunswick once had almost 30 distinct community TV services, today there is a single provincial English service and a single provincial French service offered by Rogers, with only occasional insertions of local content.
Part of the problem is that the CRTC no longer requires cable companies to license systems with fewer than 20,000 subscribers. On questioning yesterday, Ms. Watson admitted that only 4 of 79 such licence-exempt systems in New Brunswick and Newfoundland offer any community programming. When Commissioner Menzies asked whether there had previously been community programming in these 79 systems, Ms. Watson said "Not while we were operating the system. We bought New Brunswick in 2000."
On Tuesday last week, Patrick Watt, station manager for the community-owned and operated TV channel in St. Andrews, New Brunswick testified that Rogers closed 3 small channels in rural New Brunswick in 2009, including channels in Harvey, McAdam, and Woodstock. Four more communities have been informed by Rogers that they will be cut off this year, including St. George, St. Stephen, Minto and Chipman.
CACTUS spokesperson Cathy Edwards says that Canada has fewer than 1/3 the number of community channels as it once had. CACTUS opened the hearing last Monday with a proposal to redirect the funds currently spent by cable companies on their own "community channels" to community-owned and –operated channels such as the one in St. Andrews. "If communities themselves were in charge, these channels could be kept open and would be genuinely accessible to residents."
Contact: Catherine Edwards, (819) 772-2862



CABLE GIANTS SUBVERT CANADIANS' DESIRE FOR ACCOUNTABILITY RE. COMMUNITY CHANNELS
Ottawa (May 6, 2010)  Instead of explaining to Canadians why they have closed community TV channels across the country and converted these public-service channels into branded business divisions, Canada's largest BDUs are subverting Canadians' desire for accountability, said the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS).  
In a recent inteview with The Wire Report, Colette Watson, vice-president of "Rogers TV" (formerly, Rogers' community channels), claimed the CRTC has received "no empirical data that there is a problem" and ignored the CACTUS proposal for a not-for-profit agency that would track the use of every dollar paid by Canadians for original community programming and training.
"Considering that Rogers' 2009 annual report does not even mention the 'community TV' channels on which it says it spends $35 million a year, it's frankly astonishing that Rogers would criticize the Community-Access Media Fund proposal, which is based on published annual audits and more detailed reporting than has ever been conducted by cable companies for community channels," said Catherine Edwards, spokesperson for CACTUS.  "Under our business model, every community and every subscriber would learn for the first time exactly where money earmarked by the CRTC for local expression actually goes, and how much original content and skills training that money generates."
"Just a few years ago, cable companies demanded and obtained a radical restructuring of the Canadian Television Fund with claims that its voluminous reports detailing hours, genres and costs of programs produced were inadequate" pointed out Edwards.  "But when Canadians and the CRTC hold cable companies to the same standards, these corporate giants either will not or cannot show how they spend each community's local programming budget."   
"We're long overdue for a new model," said Edwards. "The track record of cable companies attempting to run 'community channels' on behalf of communities is one of excluding residents from programming decisions, studio closures, and using money earmarked for local expression to promote their own businesses.  Canadians both want and deserve the not-for-profit Fund we have proposed because it is 100% accountable, 100% transparent, and 100% focussed on community service--not on making profits for the private sector.  If they want to do that, they should apply for a separate license." 
The CRTC has invited those who filed comments on community TV to make additional comments before May 17, 2010.  Details are available on the CRTC's website: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-661-6.htm
Contact:  Catherine Edwards, (819) 772-2862

An Alternative to Literacy

Is it possible for community video and radio to play this role?
a small experiment by the Deccan Development Society, Hyderabad, India

Literacy has become a Holy Grail in the world of development. Development groups working in rural areas suffer from a feeling of inadequacy if they are not pursuing literacy programmes. They maybe doing excellent work through harnessing people's knowledge in the fields of forestry, fisheries, natural farming, land development, natural resource management whatever. But literacy programmes haunt them. The irony is that in most of these activities literacy has very little to offer. People's knowledge and peoples science in all these areas are so strong that they need very little external help in the form of technology. But still the feeling of inadequacy prevails very strong among non-literacy groups.

Time has come to question this exaggerated importance given to literacy in development. I would not like to be misunderstood as an anti-literacy person. I value literacy very much. What I am pointing to is in valuing literacy we should not devalue other capabilities and skills present in non-literate people. By doing so, we might kill all the self-confidence in these people. I am itching to tell a story which I had heard in my childhood. I still cherish it for the message it gives:

Three scholars decided to cross a river. They asked a boatman to help them cross the river. The boatman was glad to oblige them. As the boat sailed out, one scholar asked the boatman: Have you read Vedas. The boatman humbly replied "No Sir". He felt very ashamed. The scholar rubbed it in. "A quarter of your life is wasted". After they sailed a little further, the second scholar asked: "Have you read Upanishads?" The boatman felt further small. "No Sir". The scholar said contemptuously: "Half your life is wasted". They sailed halfway into the river. The third scholar asked, "At least have you read Puranas?" The boatman felt totally humiliated. "No sir, not even that". "Then three quarter of your life is a waste". By then they hit a whirlpool. The boat started sinking. The boatman, for the first time, asked the scholars: "Sir, do you people know how to swim?" All the scholars said "No" in total panic. "All your lives are a waste now sir", said the boatman and leapt out of the boat.
What I am trying to say is that in our part of the world there is a generation of women and men, people who are in their thirties and above who are not literate. But they have deep reserves of knowledge in farming, forestry, ecology, natural resource management -- areas where survival knowledge, which is paramount for the human race, eludes us the literates. Why should we discount this rich knowledge and skills with which they survive in the harshest of environments and push literacy towards them as THE SKILL ? This has been one of the key questions that bothers my mind in my work with disadvantaged rural women in Medak District of Andhra Pradesh.

Historical background of DDS
DDS started in this environment as the commitment of a group of professionals to the people in the Zaheerabad region to continue a rural development project abandoned by an industrial house due to its own compulsions. The earliest objectives of DDS was to combine ecological and employment parameters to regenerate the livelihoods of the people in the area through a string of activities:

Ensure 100 days of employment per year per person
Use these employment days to work on their lands to enhance the productivity of their soils through bunding, trenching, top soil addition etc.
Galvanise communities of women to lease in lands from large farmers and work on it collectively.
Green the area through planting in the village commons.
An associated objective was to transfer people-oriented technology. This included housing technologies, use of solar energy, permaculture way of organic farming etc. Gradually all these efforts have moved in a reverse direction. Today we recognise that people have more knowledge than us, more appropriate technologies than we can think of. Therefore our programmes have evolved into three principles:

gender justice
environmental-soundness and
people's knowledge
Education at all levels was a very strong component in this string of efforts. Education, for DDS, encompasses a range of activities starting with balwadies to provide a creative learning environment for young children to Pachasaale, a unique school for working children which takes formal learning and life skills under one umbrella and redefines education into an area of relevance for rural children. Within this range are fitted intensive workshops for adult women, village night schools for out of school children etc.

Central to these attempts is the relocation of people's knowledge in the areas of health (through revitalising the traditional healthcare systems), agriculture (understanding, documenting and promoting people's knowledge of farming systems and practices) etc.

New forms of expression
When the commitment of an organisation is to value peoples knowledge and build its work on their confidence, the need to explore various tools of expression with which people can communicate with the outside world. Because the outside world is a reality and their necessity to communicate with it is also a reality.

In this effort, literacy was not the only choice. We felt literacy can actually become a constraint for non-literate people whose aural and visual narratives are so powerful. So what else can one think of ? For me the possibility of providing video and audio technologies as a means of expression for the disadvantaged rural women was an exciting idea. So I have made efforts to equip a group of ten women with the skills to handle this media.
Communicating through video
I began a series of video workshops from January this year. Each workshop was for a duration of four days. Spread over eight months these workshops have trained a total of seven women of whom four are non-literate. Of these seven women, two are students and the four are farm labour and one is a DDS worker. All of them are dalits in an age group of 16-35 years. The workshops started with a total of eleven persons, ten women and one man. But of them four dropped out during various phases of the workshops and seven have made it to all the workshops.

The women chose to learn video production for various reasons. Their own reasons
are as follows:
We would like to let our issues known outside(Ippapally Mallamma)
Our news must go outside (Zaheerabad Punyamma)
We are working on the Gene Bank in our village. Several times you people come to shoot our work. But there are seasons when it is very important to shoot. At that time you people may not be available. Therefore when you people do not come, we can do our own recording and give it to you. (Humnapur Laxmi)
So that we can communicate with people in other sanghams. Whenever some events take place in our sanghams, you people come to video it. When you don't come, we have to wait for you. Instead we can do the recording ourselves and take it out.(Pastapur Narsamma)
To photograph; marriages etc.(Bopanpalli Nagamma)
When big government people come to our village, we would like to record what they tell us. That becomes a document for us. (Eedulapalle Manjula)

Their expectations from the workshops were also varied.
How can we tell about the work we are doing?
To know whether it (the video) can record what we talk and say
To understand what parts it (the video) has
To know whether it records from a distance; how to make pictures big and small; how to make sound big and small;
The training objective was to familiarise the participants with the grammar of television, with the operation of video cameras and in editing their shoots and make their own stories. These workshops were conducted by three of us:

P V Satheesh, a television Producer/Director (who incidentally is Director, Deccan Development Society and is an experienced producer and trainer and familiar with the rural ethos).
Vijendra Patil, a Cameraman- producer who has a variety of experiences in
training and production.
Yesu, an 18-year old rural boy, who had recently apprenticed with a video production house and who was being simultaneously trained on video operations and editing.
The training was done with one DV Camera and two VHS video cameras and a makeshift editing set up.