First community-run radio station strikes a chord

In developing countries, people often find it impossible to access information to help improve their living conditions.

Dua Jung, an ethnic Hmong villager living in the remote Khoun District of northern Xieng Khouang Province, Lao PDR, told IRIN: "A lot of Hmong people in my village and people in villages throughout Khoun are poor and illiterate. It's so remote; they can't even afford a TV to receive news, or other important information, and [even if they receive it] they might not understand the language it is in."

The Lao Government and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), with the assistance of Jung and other volunteers from the Khoun community, set up Khoun Community Radio for Development, in a bid to overcome such problems. The station is remarkable for Laos in being the first media outlet run by community volunteers. All other media is staffed exclusively by state media employees.

Breaking new ground

Despite support from the Lao government and UNDP, it was not easy to establish the station, said Vongsone Oudomsouk, project manager of the UNDP Khoun Radio Support Project, which is based in the Department of Information and Culture, Xieng Khouang Province.

"None of us – the government, UNDP, the community and the project team - had any experience in setting up community-run radio," Oudomsouk told IRIN, "There was no precedent in this country and we lacked knowledge and training. It was a matter of learning as you go.

"It was extremely challenging to teach the volunteer staff everything from scratch - be it learning how to turn on a computer and move a mouse, to holding a microphone properly," Oudomsouk said. "Not to mention how to produce or host a programme."

Hamish Robertson, a consultant who taught volunteers audio editing, learned just how difficult this could be: "Audio editing programmes are mostly [written] in English - the drop-down menus, the commands, etc. How can a person who cannot speak English, who cannot read, or whose language has no written culture, deal with that? We developed manuals with the volunteers that were picture-based, and training was very much hands-on."

A voice for all sectors

The station's aim, said Xaisongkham Indoungchanthy, of UNDP Khoun Radio Support Project, is to break the traditional top-down information flow and provide the local community, particularly minorities, women and the disabled, with a voice. "The station represents all sections of Khoun society, including farmers, village chiefs, members of the Lao Women's Union, teachers, students, disabled people and shopkeepers."

Photo: Xaisongkham Indoungchanthy/UNDP

Two female volunteers host a popular local news programme on Khoun Community Radio

Content is key to achieving the station's objectives, Oudomsouk told IRIN. "We don't take pre-prepared programmes from outside. We are already working with partners such as the UXO [Unexploded Ordnance] Lao, the Poverty Reduction Fund, the Asia Development Bank's Water and Sanitation Project and the Mine Action Group (Laos). They pay us to produce programmes for them - features, plugs, and short dramas with community-relevant messages."

According to Matthias Meier, UNDP's democratic governance specialist, Khoun Community Radio is a great success. Since its first test broadcasts in late October 2007, it is now broadcasting seven days a week, six hours a day in three local languages - Lao Lum, Hmong and Khamuu.

The programmes have struck a chord: "The response from the communities has been truly overwhelming," said Meier. "In the first six months alone, the radio received more than 3,000 letters and over 6,000 phone calls. Ethnic people have been by far the most active listeners and volunteers. There is clearly a great demand from ethnic communities to receive information in their own languages and communicate their hopes and concerns."

Khoun Community Radio has attracted great interest from around Laos. Representatives from numerous provinces have visited the station and exchanges and fact-finding missions with Thai community radio stations have also taken place.

"Last week, the deputy head of the Lao Ministry of Information and Culture's Mass Media Department and the head of Lao National Radio's Production Unit came to have a look. They said they would like Khoun to be a model for future community-run radio," Oudomsouk told IRIN. "The entire community and team are extremely proud."

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