New Site for Waves of Change!

We are now posting to our new site:
deepdishwavesofchange.org
please change your bookmarks to our new site!


www.deepdishwavesofchange.org

Public Control of Cell Phones

A discussion about the politics of cell phone use - from the exploitation involved in the mining of coltan (an essential mineral used in consumer electronics) to the domination of phone companies.

 

This discussion took place at Bluestockings, during the event "Independent Media, Technology, and Self-Determination Struggles in Nigeria" on March 27, 2011. 

Emem Okon of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center in the Niger Delta and Omoyele Sowore of Sahara Reporters will speak to the role of communications technology in struggles against political corruption and oil exploitation in Nigeria. Jamie McClelland of MayFirst/PeopleLink will address the changing role of communications technology in the internationalization of such struggles, and lead a discussion on what is to be done to seize this moment. This is the third of a series of reportbacks form the fourth IMC-Africa Convergence, held last month in Dakar, Senegal. Facilitated by Amy Dalton and Nicole Hummel.

More information about the panelists and the event can be found athttp://nyc.indymedia.org/or/2011/03/114534.html

 

 

 

Changing location!

We're working on a new web page and have the new blog set up.
Go to:
http://www.deepdishwavesofchange.org

Once on the new page, you can go to either the map, the blog, or to one of the selected videos at the bottom.  You can also search for people, locations or issues on the bottom of the page. The search pulls up links to the blog, the map and articles. Check out the articles! Check out the photos! Both of those are at the "Library" column.

Please give feedback as to how the site can work better for you!
Feel free to comment on any of the posts.
If you know of community projects or articles, please send to
deepdishtelevision@gmail.com

KNN: Kibera News Network

http://kiberanewsnetwork.org/

The images and voices of the Kenyan shacktown in Nairobi are posted to the internet.

Letter from Seoul:Mediact

Thanks to many people's support..... Mr. Hee-moon Cho, the chairperson of KOFIC has been recently fired by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Toursim. (as of Nov. 8, 2010) He was absolutely responsible for all the problems and regressions that KOFIC has caused during last 1 year. So this dismissal surely means a victory when seen from the film/media movement's perspective but we need to see who will be the next person to take charge after him.  And moreover, KOFIC's 2011 budget plan contains many serious problems including total budget cutting of film production support for independent films and art films. MCST/KOFIC is also planning to run the media center and independent film theaters for themselves based on the low performance of these facitilies this year. This means a regression in terms of autonomous governance model of these public facilities, which used to be run by civil society so far.  And KOFIC doesn't seem to have enough capability of running these public media facilities well, either. So judging from KOFIC's current budget plan, it seems that 2011 will be another tough year.

2.
Mediact is doing their best to survive and keep a hopeful spirit. Now we are trying to be more systematic in building a more sustainable operating structure and expanding our supporters and fundraising/revenue sources. For example, we are trying to get the status of "preliminary social enterprise" so that we can get fund from the Seoul City government. We are also contacting Mapogu local government if they can fund our activities, too. Of course, these are done with the perspective of advocating and strengthening public media policies and buidling networks with local civil organizations...

We are also keeping our eye on the 2011 budget of Korea Broadcasting and Communications Committee esp. regarding their participatory/citizen media related activities. Recently they have submitted 2011 budget plan which contains budget cutting of public access program by 40% from 2.5 million USD in 2010 to 1.5 million USD in 2011...

And besides working for winning public funds, we are also considering fundraising from the private sector such as enterprise sponsorships.We are considering over the implications and terms of these sponsorships...

We are also trying to expand our individual supporters. We have now reached 120 regular donors who submit a monthly payment. I hope you guys can spread the word and recommend your friends for possible monetary support for MediACT using fb MediACT 3.0 Cause page.
http://www.causes.com/causes/496849
http://www.mediact.org/web/etc/pop_sponform5.php

And celebrating our 200th day of survival since the re-opening in Sangam-dong, we are having a little event with our supporters on December 19th, 2010.  (Actually the exact date of 200th is Nov. 29 but we needed some time to prepare for the event because we wanted to involve our community members in the preparation stage.)  On this day, we will be holding a flea market and a screening of films made by Mediact students.

So these are some of the current news about Mediact and its struggle. Hope this was of interest to you and please forward the message to those who would be interested in.
best regards,
jihyun kim
Media policy and research dept.

MediACThttp://www.medioact.org/

Andean Meeting of Radio Communicators

REFRAKA Network in Haiti Gives Voice to Women

REFRAKA - the Network of Haitian Women Community Radio Broadcasters - and its challenges after the January 12 earthquake. Includes an excerpt of the 2003 movie "Radyo Pa Nou."

REFRAKA is one of three partners in the new grassroots media reconstruction watchdog consortium - AYITI KALE JE • HAITI GRASSROOTS WATCH • HAITI VEEDOR. Email: Ayitkaleje@gmail.com

Waves of Change Map

We are working on setting up an interactive map for the Waves of Change Project.  This will be a page embedded in the new Deep Dish site which is now being redesigned.  We have over 300 potential posts of video, audio files and graphics which will be an on-going Waves of Change project. Meanwhile we are posting a few samples of our material to this Google map. This is the link to the test site:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=109520517858965396132.00048838d78b7d003adb8


If you have comments or suggestions, please comment below or write deedeehalleck at gmail or nicole.hummel at gmail and let us know how to make it better.

Community Media Survey

The link below is to a survey being collected by the US organization, Free Press. Although it is intended to assess community media in the United States, Waves of Change would be interested in getting international responses.
If you are a community media organization, please fill out on the freepress web site, but also please send a copy to  deedeehalleck@gmail.com

http://free.convio.net/site/Survey?&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=4162

Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy

"The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy is a group of 17 media, policy and community leaders. Its purpose is to assess the information needs of communities, and recommend measures to help Americans better meet those needs. http://report.knightcomm.org/

"The Knight Commission sees new thinking about news and information as a necessary step to sustaining democracy in the digital age. It thus follows in the footsteps of the 1940s Hutchins Commission and the Kerner and Carnegie Commissions of the 1960s.

"But in the digital age the stakes are even higher. Technological, economic and behavioral changes are dramatically altering how Americans communicate. Communications systems no longer run along the lines of local communities, and the gap in access to digital tools and skills is wide and troubling.

"The Commission seeks to start a national discussion – leading to real action. Its aims are to maximize the availability and flow of credible local information; to enhance access and capacity to use the new tools of knowledge and exchange; and to encourage people to engage with information and each other within their geographic communities."

***********************************
The Knight Foundation has been criticized for its connection with U.S. national security agencies.
This from http://www.Swans.com:
"The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (also known as the Knight Foundation), is a major supporter of seemingly "independent" media projects, and was created in 1940 with monies generated from the Akron Beacon Journal. Since 2005, the president and CEO of the foundation has been Alberto Ibarguen, the former publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. Ibarguen maintains impressive democracy-manipulating credentials, as he is a US member of the imperialist Inter-American Dialogue, board member of the CIA-linked Council on Foreign Relations, and has held high-level appointments within a number of media-manipulating groups like the Freedom Forum's Newseum, and the Inter American Press Association. Ibarguen, however, is a board member of the newly formed and ostensibly progressive investigative journalism project, Pro Publica -- for a critique of this organization's work see "Investigating the Investigators: A Critical Look at Pro Publica."

The Knight Foundation supports a number of media projects, one of which is the Internews Network. This is a significant show of support as the Internews Network is a large media agency that has a long history of collaboration with the US government and the National Endowment for Democracy. Created in 1982, Internews, like CIMA, promotes a special brand of independent media; that is, media that is independent -- or free -- of any questioning of the hegemonic US media.(4) In 2005, the president of Internews, David Hoffman, co-wrote an article (with conservative commentator Helle Dale) in which he observed that his network played a crucial role in the "war of ideas," a war that he believes should rely upon the "two pillars of American democracy -- free enterprise and free media."

This commentary is part of an article by Michael Barker entitled: "Global Media Managers"

(Swans - March 9, 2009) On January 13, 2009, the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), a recently formed international media manipulator, released a report titled, "Soft Censorship: How Governments Around the Globe Use Money to Manipulate the Media." The report documents the manner in which various governments manipulate media systems within their own countries (e.g., the Ukraine and Chile). Significantly the report fails to identify the US government's extensive efforts to manipulate media systems in those same countries or the conduct of CIMA itself. When it is revealed that CIMA is a project of the US government's CIA-inspired National Endowment for Democracy (NED) this failure is contextualised. For example, by providing strategic support to local media projects the NED played a key role in facilitating Ukraine's Orange Revolution (in 2005), and in catalysing the ouster of Chile's resident dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1987. (1)

Montes de Maria Colectivo de Comunicacion

Chilca, one of the students of the Escuela Audiovisual Infantil frames the shot. Photo from Tomando Conciencia

This July the Our Media group met in Medellin, Colombia. Among the presentations were films from Montes de Maria. Children at the Escuela Audiovisual Infantil in that region have made many films addressing issues of concern to children.
This interview with Maria Eugenia Lora Muñoz, who started as a student in the program, was produced by Victoria Maldonado and Harold Secué at the conference in Medellin. In it Maria Eugenia describes the workshops and how the themes and distribution means are chosen by the children themselves.
Monie listens to the community radio station. Photo from Tomando Conciencia

The following clip is part of a series made at the Escuela about the rights of children. Each episode of the series ilustrates one right. This one is about the right for children to have time to play and have friends.

Some of the films produced by the children are on youTube.

The school has a vegetable garden and this segment shows how a group of children gather ingredients to make soup, including unlocking the school to pick some tomatos.

A similar focus on food and school nutrition in New York City is in What's on Your Plate."The audience follows two seventh graders as they make the journey that food takes, from the farm to CSAs and farmer’s markets, to schools and into the home. Sadie and Safiyah meet all the people involved in feeding the tremendous appetite of nine million New Yorkers. Throughout the film, the girls explore some essential questions: Why does food that is bad for us exist? Why can’t everyone eat healthy, non-processed food all the time?"--From the Slow Food blog.

Indigenous Radio Station in Argentina Attacked

Argentina, 10 de agosto de 2009
Atacan con bombas incendiarias a radio campesina indígena de Santiago del Estero

El viernes 7 de agosto a la 1 de la madrugada explotaron dos bombas de nafta en la FM Pajsachama, ubicada en el paraje El Retiro, cerca de San José de Boquerón, Santiago del Estero, Argentina. Una bomba incendiaria estaba ubicada en los estudios y la otra junto a los equipos de energía solar que alimentan la radio.

La bomba que explotó en los estudios tenía el objetivo de destruir toda la radio, pero la rápida actuación de la persona que vigilaba las instalaciones evitó que se quemaran los equipos, aunque no pudo impedir que el fuego afectara el mobiliario, la biblioteca de la Central Campesina del Norte y diversos cables. La otra pudo ser apagada a tiempo antes de afectar los equipos que permiten el funcionamiento de la emisora, ya que se trata de una zona muy pobre que no cuenta con energía eléctrica.

La emisora comunitaria pertenece a las comunidades del pueblo Lule-Vilela y fue instalada hace poco más de un año y es la primer FM de Argentina que funciona con energía solar. Es un vehículo para la transmisión de las voces de los pueblos campesinos indígenas en lucha, y forma parte de la red de cuatro radios comunitarias del MOCASE-VC (Movimiento Campesino de Santiago del Estero - Vía Campesina), con el acompañamiento de FM La Tribu. Desde su incio ha sido una herramienta para la difusión de los derechos y las luchas de las comunidades campesinas indígenas del norte de Santiago del Estero.

Los integrantes de la radio han denunciado que la FM ha sufrido amenazas desde su instalación, y "es por ello que siempre quedaba un compañero o compañera a dormir en las instalaciones de forma rotativa. Este hecho ha permitido que el compañero que quedó anteanoche evitara el incendio de todas las instalaciones".

No se ha podido identificar a los responsables, a los cuales se los vio huyendo en una moto poco después de la explosión. Sin embargo, afirma la emisora, este atentado se realiza en el marco de las denuncias que FM Pajsachama venía realizando por contra varios terratenientes de la zona y políticos locales. Intentaron presentar la denuncia ante el destacamento Nº 12 de San José del Boquerón pero no se pudo realizar porque no había ningún funcionario presente.

Por más información comunicarse con:
FM PajSachama
03841-15403290 / 0385-155063942
Secretaría de Comunicación MOCASE-VC
03843-421195 0385-154086164 03843-15400980

This is a video, made in August 2008, about a gathering of the Via Campesina, which took place in Rosario. Spokespersons from Santiago del Estero are included in this video.

Dublin Community Television Celebrates One Year on the Air!

Looking Left 2 : The Ripening of Time from DCTV on Vimeo.

From Sean O Siochru:
I am proud to say that Dublin Community Television, following more than a decade in planning, lobbying and building, is today celebrating the first birthday of its official launch last July. With seven full-time staff, lots of short-term people and volunteers, we now produce up to 40 hours a month of community programmes (as well as broadcasting selections from around the world), much of it in our new state-of-the-low-end-art studio. This volume of own-produced stuff puts us second only to RTE - the public service broadcaster here!

You can find out more about DCTV at http://www.dctv.ie, and we go out on cable all over Ireland (Republic only!). But you can also stream our own-produced programmes from Vimeo (the cheapest way we could find to stream high quality), and all can be torrent-downloaded (all creative commons. of course). See: http://vimeo.com/user950597/ videos/sort:date for about 55 programmes, including local and international campaigns; drama made by school children, our own news programme called The Sound; and lots lots more.

Clemencia Rodriguez and CINEP's First Video Project

..."The next day, sure enough, at sun up they were there with five mules to pick us up-- us and our very shiny, new video camera and so we got on the mules, Claudia on one mule and myself on another and we put the equipment on another one and up we went on an Andean trail until we found this community of small farmers (Samana Caldas) which was about two hours away. The plan for that day and the following days... to train them with video, for they had never operated not even a photography camera let alone a video camera."

Anniversary of the AMARC Declaration

WE, the representatives and members of AMARC from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and North America,
TAKING INTO ACCOUNT the Amman Declaration, ratified by participant community radio broadcasters members of AMARC during its 9th General Assembly in Amman, Jordan, November 16th 2006.

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT the Joint Declaration on Diversity in Broadcasting adopted on 12 December 2007 by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and the ACHPR (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information.
DECLARE:
State Obligations
That the principles set out in AMARC’s Principles on Democratic Regulation in Community Broadcasting (May 3, 2008) should be respected by governments as appropriate standards in this area. As such, they should be integrated into legal and policy frameworks, taking into account different cultural and development contexts.
Specifically,
* States should ensure respect for their international obligations in the area of freedom of expression, including in relation to community media.
* Community broadcasting should be recognized in national laws and policies as having distinct characteristics, and community broadcasters should be guaranteed fair and equitable access to the radio frequency spectrum and other broadcast distribution platforms, including digital platforms.
* Procedures for allocating licences and frequencies to community broadcasters should be fair, open and transparent, and the
implementation of these procedures should be overseen by an independent regulatory body.
* Community broadcasters should have access to a diversity of funding sources free of unreasonable restrictions. This may include public funds which are administered in a manner that does not compromise their independence.
* States should take adequate measures to end the climate of impunity, and such measures should include devoting sufficient resources and attention to preventing attacks of governments and others on journalists, community radio stations and independent media and newspapers exercising their right to freedom of expression, investigating such attacks when they do occur, bringing those responsible to justice and compensating victims.
* States should take appropriate steps to ensure that community radio and television broadcasters have access to digital and all new technologies to assist them in their work. States should also take the steps needed to ensure reasonable and equitable access by community broadcasters to satellite radio.

Community Broadcasters
We commit ourselves to challenge the dominant negative and stereotypical images of women in the media. We reaffirm our commitment that women’s access to and participation in decision-making in the media should be guaranteed at all levels and that producing programs that celebrate women’s diversity and highlight their contribution to society should be promoted.

We remain committed to addressing the specific needs of children and youth both in our programming and through promoting the participation of children and youth in the production of community broadcast programming.

We are committed to supporting the development of community radio in new countries and to developing solidarity and lobbying for further international and national recognition of community radio’s social contribution where it is in jeopardy.

We are committed to enhancing the role of community radio in achieving the millenium development goals, conflict resolution, peace building, poverty alleviation and confronting disaster management, climate change and environment deterioration by reinforcing the links and coordination between community radios and NGOs, researchers, civil society movements and stakeholders .

We stress the critical importance of community radio in empowering local communities through education, learning knowledge exchange and building capacities in communities.

We stress the role of community radio as a producer of culture, in strengthening cultural rights and, in particular, the rights of
linguistic and cultural minorities. We recognize that community radio plays an important role in helping particularly to communicate and in protecting francophone culture in Canada.

We conclude this event by reaffirming our commitment to realize our demands in this Declaration and we pledge to continue our work for the promotion and protection of people’s communication rights and all rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Montreal, 7 November 2008.

Guatemala-- Community Station Raids

Rosendo Pablo Ramirez, 34, and his five-year-old daughter, Abeth, beside a wireless antenna/transmitter. http://www.culturalsurvival.org/node/8132
Promoting the Rights, Voices, and Visions of Indigenous Peoples
If there's a model of hope for the world's indigenous peoples, it is the town of Todos Santos Cuchumatnin in northwestern Guatemala. The Mayans who live here still wear their traditional clothing with pride and practice their traditional ceremonies and customs, and 95 percent of the population still speaks Mam. At the same time, the people of Todos Santos also participate vigorously in the larger society and have a thriving economy. The key to this indigenous success story is Radio Qman Txun, the town's community radio station.

But in recent weeks police have confiscated equipment at four radio stations near Todos Santos. Radio Qman Txun, along with all the other community radio stations in Guatemala, is at extreme risk. The Guatemalan constitution guarantees to the right to community radio, but the national telecommunications law does not, and government forces are using the pretext of this law to shut down the stations and cut off this vital cultural lifeline. This assault on Mayan culture has to stop, and right now we have a unique chance to do it: a new telecommunications bill has been introduced in the Guatemalan Congress, and recent elections resulted in 94 (of 158) new members of Congress. We have a very short window of time to reach these new legislators before they are swamped with conflicting agendas. For the new bill to pass, 80 legislators must vote for the bill. Currently, we have the support of 24; we need 56 more.

Community Media Study Released by Council of Europe

The Council of Europe recently released a study, 'Promoting social cohesion. The role of community media', authored by Peter Lewis.
The pdf is located at: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media/MC-S-MD/H-Inf(2008)013_en.pdf
In the report, it is suggested that the Council of Europe should encourage member states to:
• create legislative infrastructure, without which community media cannot develop;
• preserve analogue frequencies that may in some countries continue to be needed after the digital switchover, and to ensure that community media are not disadvantaged in the digital environment;
• recognise the social value of community media and its role as a form of local public service by committing funds to support the sector, both directly, with schemes such as the French levy on the commercial audiovisual sector (FSER), the allocation of a portion of the licence fee (Ireland, some German Länder) or by lowering the cost of licences, and indirectly, through funding
projects as part of government programmes directed towards health, community development, education, social inclusion, support for minority ethnic communities, etc.
• commissioning studies of best practice in community media, surveys of emerging needs such as multicultural programming
and audience research on the Australian model;
• supporting a trans-European network to monitor policy, a community media observatory;
• encouraging training schemes as part of lifelong learning and media literacy;
• supporting programme exchange within the European community media sector and beyond, with regions which are the “homelands” of diasporic communities;

Communique from the Our Media Conference in Ghana

We, academics, activists, artists and practitioners from 42 countries in six continents of the world, gathered at the OURMedia 7 conference in Accra, Ghana, from 11 to15 August 2008. We shared our work and pursued our ongoing dialogue on the achievements and challenges of our communities around the theme of "Identity, Inclusion and Innovation - Alternative Communication in a Globalized World."
OURMedia is an open, decentralized and non-hierarchical network created with the goal of bridging gaps and facilitating dialogue and collaboration among people like ourselves and the communities whose voices and experiences we seek to project. OURMedia 7 was the first time the network met in Africa since it was founded in 2001, the previous six conferences having been held in Washington, D.C.., USA; Barcelona, Spain; Barranquilla, Colombia; Porto Alegre, Brazil; Bangalore, India; and Sydney, Australia.
Together at OURMedia 7, we constructed a conference that strove to be in itself a mirror of alternative communication, not only reflecting through its content but also living out through its process the values of identity, inclusion and innovation.
OURMedia 7 highlighted the three sub-themes of Identity, Inclusion and Innovation as key dimensions of alternative communication in, for and towards an alternative world. The three sub-themes may be regarded as different faces of marginalization in a world where expression is becoming increasingly uniform, majorities are being excluded, and even exploited, and certain kinds of knowledge and experience are presented as having more value than others. At the same time, the assertion of identity, inclusion and innovation are the very sources of strength to overcome homogenization, exclusion and relegation.Interviewing for Radio Ada. Photo by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron
From the moment OURMedia 7 began and especially its opening invocation - a profound mix of poetry, oratory, song, drum and poignant bamboo flute (the atenteben) - we came to better understand and appreciate a world view overlooked or deliberately cast aside in a globalized world. A world view interconnected across time, rich in symbolism of image, rhythm and cadence, movement and flow, speech and silence. We were renewed and deepened by what we found. We realized even more how impoverished the globalized world being constructed by a few – with its packaged assumptions, assembly-line media and sound bites - has become.
We discussed vivid accounts of solid academic research, conscientious practice, or both, on alternative communication initiatives. These initiatives spanned the various parts of the world that we came from, from China to Australia to Turkey to Spain to Argentina to Guyana, to name only a few, and, of course, Africa. They covered a tremendous diversity, ranging from traditional media to new information and communication technologies: for example, indigenous symbols, street art, community theatre, community radio, film, and current new online media such as YouTube.
The accounts were often in the context of the different ways communities are violated – by endemic poverty, by the neglect of the state, by the outright or insidious take-over of corporate interests, by the indifference or sensationalism of the mainstream media, by armed conflict brought about by a combination of these and other factors. In every case, more powerful were the stories of how alternative communication, by enabling people to take control of the primary act of communication, defy even seemingly insurmountable obstacles to preserve and enrich what matters most to them as communities. In every case, what mattered was not the technology but the extent to which people, and especially those traditionally excluded, had equitable access to create through communication. Community Radio Worker who is Continuity Announcer at Radio ADA in Ghana
We celebrated the 10th anniversary of Radio Ada, a pioneer community radio station in Ghana, at a Community Radio Symposium on its home soil in Ada in the Dangme East District. We were honoured with a regal welcome from traditional custodians and leaders of its catchment area - chiefs and queenmothers and their elders in regalia. We engaged with some of the communities served by Radio Ada and found reaffirmation that our reason for being is in what we mean to our communities. DIALOGUE WITH RADIO ADAPhoto by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron
In dialogue with us through volunteer producers acting as interpreters, members of these communities reiterated the powerful sentiment in the video documentary shown on Radio Ada: "If you take Radio Ada away from us, we would lose our language, we would lose our culture, we would lose who we are." We were heartened that Radio Ada is but one of the living examples of participatory communication institutions within the Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN) and indeed, within the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC).
We provided the forum for the Africa observance of the 25th anniversary of AMARC. We marked how AMARC has grown in those 25 years from a handful to over 4,000 Community Radio stations in 115 countries across the globe, many of them in Africa. The depth of the organization was evident in the workshops AMARC organized as part of OURMedia 7 on democratic legislation, women's empowerment and good governance, social impact assessment, and digitalization. A key element of the observance was a workshop of representative members to sharpen the vision for a Community Radio Network in Africa as part of the process of rebuilding AMARC Africa. Participants came out of the workshops with greater clarity, confidence and oneness of purpose, building a solid foundation for the renaissance of AMARC Africa.
OURMedia 7 deepened our respect even more for the tenacity and innovativeness of our communities in asserting their identity and their right to inclusion. At the same time, we were again made aware of the importance of empowering legislation and regulation. We heard about and joined with others worldwide in expressing solidarity with the newspaper Euskaldunon Egunkaria, from the evidence shut down since 2003 simply for keeping alive the language and culture of the Basque people. On a positive note, we applauded the agreement between GCRN and the national regulatory authority of Ghana on a development plan for approximately 100 Community Radio stations nationwide. We were also buoyed by news that the national regulatory authority of Uruguay had allocated a third of the frequency band to community media, including community television.
Being in Africa, we call especially on African governments to effect or consistently implement legislation that specifically addresses the needs of community media, thereby realizing the commitment made in their own declarations. We recall, in particular, the 1990 African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation (Arusha, Tanzania), the 2001 African Charter on Broadcasting (Windhoek, Namibia), the 2002 Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa of the Africa Commission on Human and People’s Rights (Banjul, The Gambia), and most recently the communiqué from the 2008 World Press Freedom Day (Maputo, Mozambique)..
In an inequitable world where technical and financial assistance can play a critical leveraging role, we also call on donors and aid organisations to recognize that the very process of communication is not only at the heart of development, but is itself development. We ask them to extend their active support to people-centred-and-led media and communication, not just as a means to development ends, but as an embodiment of true participation and sustainability. We urge them to develop their own communication policies and strategies in coherence with their willingness to support participatory and inclusive processes of social change.
Coming to a slice of Africa, experiencing firsthand its dynamism and challenges and joining it with the vigorous reality of alternative communication and media throughout the world, impacted deeply on all of us.
We call on each other:
· to keep alive the memory and experiences of OURMedia 7 to strengthen our resolve to facilitate the use of communication to build just, sustainable and genuinely democratic communities
· to work harder to foster dialogue and mutual learning across our great diversity and in specific fields, as for example, across the academic disciplines of communication and education
· to reinforce our support for each other and others everywhere in strengthening organic social movements invigorated by communication that embodies the values of Identity, Inclusion and Innovation
· in particular to contribute to the growth and expansion of our network, OURMedia, maintaining its horizontal structure and its democratic values.
Already, showing the vitality of our network, expressions of interest from other parts of the world have been raised to host our next conference, OURMedia 8. We look forward to another opportunity to learn about, celebrate and move forward the agenda of empowering people to assert and create their world through their media.Wilna and Alex Quarmyne, founder of Radio ADA. It was at Pacifica's Los Angeles affiliate – KPFK – that Alex Quarmyne, a young Ghanaian studying at the University of Southern California in the1960s, first gained experience working in community radio. Alex and his wife, Wilna – who was a community radio pioneer in her native Philippines – are the founders Radio Ada and the Ghana Community Radio Network.

Telestreet in Italy

This video was made by Andrew Lowenthal and Tim Parish from Engage Media in 2005. The documentary speaks with activists from TeleAut and SpegnilaTV about the process of building and running a Telestreet and media theorist Franco Berardi (Bifo) about the broader social and political implications. At the present time, it seems the Telestreet movement is over. Perhaps someone can see this and update the situation.

UN May Cancel UN Women's Radio Program

Derva Berkowitz speaking at the 60th Anniversary of the UN Commission on the Status of Women

This is an Appeal from Frieda Werden of WINGS Women's International News Gathering Service:
Word just arrived that the UN is poised to cancel the program "Women" produced by UN Radio's English service. There is no other program focused on women that I know of coming out of UN media. You can find it for streaming and downloading on the website http://radio.un.org

My letter said that the women's coverage of the UN for radio needs to be expanded. A tremendous amount is happening in the UN involving and affecting women, but nowadays campus media, community media, and women's media are all being denied press passes to cover press conferences and events put on by the UN.The woman on the left in front is Bissera Kostova, from former Yugoslavia, current producer of UN Radio "Women".Diane Bailey doing an interview for Book Talk she was a longtime producer of UN Radio's "Women".

We've never been able to get a substantial amount of serious coverage out of network media on women's issues. Who is going to cover the United Nations for us? Contact for your letters and emails of feedback and support:
Diane Bailey
Chief, English Language Unit
United Nations Radio
United Nations, Room S-850F
New York, NY 10017
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mailto:baileyd@un.org>baileyd@un.org