COMMUNITY RADIO REACHES GEORGIA
Media Helping Media, UK
Sept 26 2007
The BBC World Service Trust has launched a radio station in Georgia
that has people stopping in the streets.
People gather in the town centre of Ninotsminda in Georgia’s Javakheti
region, to listen to the country’s first community radio station.
Programmes are broadcast through a loudspeaker strategically placed
at a city centre crossroad, a popular meeting place for locals.
Community Radio in Ninotsminda (Radio NOR) broadcasts two hours
of music with regular news bulletins every day. A magazine style
programme with local and national news, reports, interviews and
phone-ins, is broadcast twice a week.
Resident involvement
The station is run by local residents, mainly ethnic Armenians,
who form the majority in this mountainous region.
Residents come to the station to sing songs, read poetry, and learn
how to produce their own programmes. There are also opportunities to
learn new skills from computer literacy to radio presentation.
‘If this radio had existed when I was young, I would have been famous
by now’.
So says Karine Arutyunyan’s grandfather whose voice could only be
heard at a local church prior to the launch of the station, but now
the loudspeaker carries the sound of the Armenian folk songs they
sing together.
Connecting communities
The station is part of the Trust’s making waves project, which promotes
the rights of Armenian and Azeri minorities living in the enclaves
of Javakheti and Kvemo-Kartli.
Head of the station, Ararat Tttyan said: ‘Even though few people are
yet able to listen to us, the importance of this radio station cannot
be underestimated. It does have impact on people’s lives.’
‘They come to us, wanting to voice their opinions and share their
problems. They feel that we are part of this community.’
The station hopes to expand its audience and has applied for a
broadcasting licence.
For a small town nestling in the mountains of south-west Georgia,
the launch of the station was a significant development.
The town is frequently cut off from the rest of the country by severe
weather and suffers from high unemployment rates and poor access to
basic amenities.
Previously, the only source of information in Armenian was a local
TV station, which broadcasts local news and translates evening news
bulletins from national TV stations.
Making waves
Staff received nearly eight months of training and preparation lead
by consultants from the BBC World Service Trust, IREX Europe and
Georgian Association Studio Re.
A similar station has been set up by the project in the Azeri populated
area of Kvemo-Kartli, in south east Georgia which will also go ‘on air’
soon through a loudspeaker.
This project is funded by the European Union under its European
Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights Programme.
It is co-funded by the Global Conflict Prevention Pool through
British Embassy in Georgia, the Open Society Georgia Foundation and
the Eurasia Foundation in Georgia.
The BBC World Service Trust gave permission for this article to be
reproduced on Media Helping Media.