AMARC: Popular Correspondents ? Supporting Voices of the Excluded Sectors in Latin America

In order to provide precise and truthful information that guarantees freedom of expression, the Púlsar Information Agency (newswire) of the World Association of Community Broadcasters ? AMARC ALC offers community and independent broadcasters a full scope of information from Latin America and the world on issues of interest to the civil society, considering the characteristics of radio language. It has 3,900 subscribers and receives more than 36,000 unique page visits a month to its website. In order to ensure a citizen and gender perspective, Púlsar favors alternative information agencies and Latin American community broadcasters as journalistic sources. However, community media professionals face difficulties in becoming leaders and information sources. These difficulties are related, among other factors, to the lack of professional formation, of reaction capabilities when facing events, and of monitoring capabilities of political, economic and cultural processes. This project aims to promote media as a platform for democratic participation by demonstrating the needs, problems, proposals, voices and diversity of Latin American marginalized social groups. Community broadcasters serve as a tool for reflection and freedom of expression. The project further strengthens networking and coordination of community radios. It proposes to support the Púlsar correspondents network expanding it to seven new radio journalists (representing the six sub-regions and the Women's Network of AMARC ALC), who will participate in a four-day training course where they learn journalistic techniques for web and radio communications, new perspectives and technical knowledge to carry out their journalistic task. Púlsar will benefit from a greater diversity of voices, journalistic expertise and additional sub-regional journalistic coverage: two regional journalistic reports and weekly issuing of notes and audio reports. All fourteen members of Pulsar's correspondents network will prepare and cover AMARC 10 in November 2010 in Buenos Aires. The conference will gather more than 500 community broadcasters from all over the world. Therefore it represents an excellent opportunity to increase debates on the fundamental right of freedom of expression, which is crucial for the visibility and inclusion of marginalized Latin American social groups.

Location and contacts
Project contacts: 
Paula Castello, Project Coordinator, paulacastello@amarc.org;
Project place: 
Buenos Aires

Project country:

Project region:

Project details
Year when project approved: 
2010
IPDC Bureau meeting nº: 
54

Implementation status :

Project evaluated:

Project scope:

Beneficiary
Beneficiary name: 
Asociación Mundial de Radios Comunitarias ? América Latina y Caribe (AMARC ALC)
Beneficiary address: 
Sarmiento 4636, dpto H. CP 1170 Ciudad de Buenos Aires

Beneficiary country:

Beneficiary phone: 
(+ 54 11) 4865-1134

Beneficiary type:

Budget
Approved budget: 
US$19 800.00
Budget code: 
354 RLA 5091

Source of funds:

UNESCO
Responsible UNESCO Regional advisers: 
Rosa M. Gonzalez, r.gonzalez@unesco.org; Günther Cyranek, g.cyranek@unesco.org;

UNESO Field Office:

Follow-up and achievments
Summary of the project implementation: 
The project has been implemented successfully: Púlsar's correspondents network has been expanded from 7 to 14 radio journalists (representing AMARC LAC's six sub-regions and Women's Network). This means Púlsar now benefits from a greater diversity of voices, journalistic expertise and additional subregional journalistic coverage. A three-day training course for the new correspondents was held in La Plata (Argentina) from 4th to 6th of november 2010. Training participants analysed the human rights situation in Latin America with specific focus on freedom of press and freedom of expression, but also with regard to gender equality, the rights of marginalized groups and indigenous communities; the correspondents flagged up issues of human rights infractions and discrimination with regard to the above, in their subregion. On this basis a digital map visualizing the needs, problems and voices of marginalized sectors in LAC was prepared and discussed during the training course. The training gave guidance on how to find news hooks for stories on marginalized social groups and general human rights issues, how to apply criteria of newsworthiness and how to select and treat trustworthy information sources. Furthermore, the correspondents network practiced news redaction for radio journalism and prepared the coverage of AMARC's tenth world conference (AMARC 10), which followed the training.
Achieved outputs: 
All defined targets to fulfill the objectives of the project were fully met. For logistical reasons the training workshop was limited to 3 instead of 4 days, but all planned topics were adecuately treated. The extensive and high-quality coverage on AMARC 10 and subsequent reporting on human rights related topics, available on Púlsar's website, demonstrate the project's impact. During AMARC 10, Púlsar produced a 30' daily radio programme on the conference (in Spanish and Portuguese). Additionally, daily web news, photos and videos as well as radio interviews called Stories from the radio. All reporting materials on AMARC 10 prepared by Púlsar's correspondents network have been published on AMARC's and Púlsar's websites: http://www.agenciapulsar.org/amarc10.php, http://amarc10.amarc.org/index.php?p=home&l=EN).