Breaking the waves: how communities are taking back control of radio

By: Alan Mawer
Date: 17 August 2016

From indigenous First Nations communities in Canada to union radio in Bolivia, community-run radio stations are playing an important role in raising awareness of political struggles and connecting activists. Unlike conventional public radio, community radio is not run by states or governments, but is run and sourced by local people.

At last week’s World Social Forum in Canada I had the pleasure of meeting some of the activists from across the globe that run community radios. Community radio is a way of overcoming the lack of southern voices broadcasting to the global south as most big radio stations are run from rich countries in the northern hemisphere.

One of these community radios is Community Green Radio which is based in the west of Uganda. Their programming deals with the themes of climate change, land grabbing, food sovereignty, multinational corporations and gender issues. There are now more than 250 FM radio stations on air in Uganda, fewer than 20 of them are community stations.

Allan Kalangi described the western part of Uganda as a hotspot of threats to the natural and social environment. Oil has been discovered around Lake Albert, causing unrest and displacement.

NAPE, the National Association for Professional Environmentalists carried out mobilisation work that saw the setting up of Community Green Radio in this area. The station buys air time from another station and broadcasts for two hours each day from Thursday to Sunday. On the other days the team goes out and visits the community listeners’ clubs that have been established. These clubs share ideas and give feedback. The listeners’ clubs mainly consist of women who farm their plots. Programming, which is in local languages rather than English, emphasizes land rights, as traditionally land has been held without title which leaves people vulnerable to land-grabbing. Radio is a way of overcoming the high illiteracy rates.

They campaign against GMOs which growers are being encouraged to use by the government. The programmes and the listeners’ clubs explain the threat of corporate control inherent in GMOs and call for people to contribute traditional seeds which are distributed to volunteers to plant in their gardens.

Community Green Radio encourages people to manage land in ways that mitigate the effects of climate change. The government has encouraged farmers to remove natural forest where their gardens are situated and replace it with pine plantations. This leaves them more vulnerable to soil erosion and to the complete loss of their land when the pines are sold later.

Community Green Radio’s news broadcasts report on the repression associated with land-grabbing. On one occasion a story first broadcast by the station was picked up by Voice of America and the greater publicity caused the company causing the issue to pull out. This activity causes friction with the state and police repression but the government cannot crack down on all community radio.

Community radios exist all over the world. In New York WBAI, Pacifica Radio’s programme Asia-Pacific Forum, broadcasts on environmental issues, racial solidarity, community responses to Islamaphobia and other community issues. They aim to challenge the vertical structures of power.

Potentially community radio controls its own infrastructure unlike with podcasts, although in Uganda air time is bought from other stations. In New York finance is mainly obtained from subscribers. In Uganda they accept sponsorship especially from NGOs and sometimes from government departments that want to communicate messages. Sponsorship is also taken from selected companies for example excluding tobacco and those promoting GMOs.

Photo by Adam Cohn/flickr