13 Feb World Radio Day 2019 – Dialogue, Tolerance and Peace

Today we join the Radio world in cel­eb­rat­ing the World Radio Day (WRD), whose theme this year is “Dia­logue, Tol­er­ance and Peace”. We share the mes­sage that the World Asso­ci­ation of Com­munity Radio (AMARC) – part­ner of the Grass­roots Radia pro­ject – has delivered for the occa­sion, reaf­firm­ing the cru­cial role of the com­munity broad­cast­ing sec­tor.

Free­dom of com­mu­nic­a­tion and expres­sion are always crit­ic­al in many Regions of the World. While enga­ging for dia­logue, tol­er­ance and peace, com­munity radi­os are still and too often endangered by the lack of clear legis­lat­ive frame­works, and equal oppor­tun­it­ies in terms of access to the fre­quency spec­trum, broad­cast­ing power and access to inform­a­tion.

Com­munity radi­os are agent of change. The extreme diversity of this move­ment and its hyper-loc­al approach don’t under­mine the uni­ver­sal val­ues of social cohe­sion it pur­sues. Dia­logue, tol­er­ance and peace are the eth­os of the com­munity radio sec­tor. The chan­ging tech­no­lo­gic­al envir­on­ment and the cross-media approach between tra­di­tion­al radio, online applic­a­tions and mobile tele­phony can offer unpre­ced­en­ted oppor­tun­it­ies for the devel­op­ment of the com­munity radio sec­tor, provid­ing the capa­city to fill the gap between those who have and those who have not access to the resources.

In this world of dual­it­ies, through vari­ous part­ner­ships and pro­jects, AMARC works towards improv­ing the con­di­tions of com­munity radi­os as a paradigm for a full plur­al­ist­ic media envir­on­ment.  Ment­or­ing and train­ing are con­duc­ted in sev­er­al regions to improve the capa­cit­ies of journ­al­ists, new tech­no­lo­gic­al solu­tions are approached and exper­i­mented, dia­logue, cam­paigns and demo­crat­ic debates over issues, such as migra­tion, cli­mate change or viol­ence against women, are pro­moted in order to raise aware­ness among listen­ers and inspire under­stand­ing for new per­spect­ives. AMARC advoc­ates and acts, on the inter­na­tion­al scene, for the improve­ment of the secur­ity of loc­al and com­munity journ­al­ists, and for the com­mu­nic­a­tion rights of com­munity broad­casters.

Let’s cel­eb­rate com­munity radio togeth­er! Join us and the Unesco cam­paign! Thank you for your par­ti­cip­a­tion!