Indigenous youth learn broadcast skills (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Indigenous youth learn broadcast skills

By Humberto Marquez
Updated May 25, 2007, 03:54 pm
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3520.shtml

[Graphic: MGN Online/Timothy 6X'The new stations will help Indigenous people
recover and preserve their culture, and to recognize it and value it for
themselves.']

�Helena Salcedo,
Venezuelan National Radio director

CARACAS, Venezuela (IPS/GIN) - Youth from 10 different Indigenous groups in
Venezuela are learning to be broadcast journalists, preparing for the
launch of eight new Indigenous community radio stations this October.

Eiker Garc��a and Nelson Maldonado, two young
Ye��kuana Indians from the Watamo and La Esmeralda
communities in the Amazon rainforest, traveled to Caracas in late April to
learn new skills.

They took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, producing a long
��mmm�� sound, following the instructions of
the professional radio presenter who was giving them breathing and
elocution lessons.

Mr. Garc��a and Mr. Maldonado��s home, which is
about 500 miles south of Caracas, is one of the sites where a radio station
is set to be installed and networked with the public Venezuelan National
Radio station.

��We��re learning to overcome our fear of the
microphone and how to conduct interviews,�� Mr.
Garc��a said during a break in the lessons. He was still
remembering the excitement of his first airplane flight.

Mr. Maldonado said very few of their people were qualified for this work.
��The community sent us on this first course because we are
cultural promoters back home,�� he said.

Twenty-one young people, nearly all of them from remote border regions,
participated in the short introductory course on radio broadcasting in late
April, in preparation for the installation of the radio stations next
October.

The course was provided by the National Telecommunications Commission
(CONATEL).

��CONATEL will assign the frequencies and provide the
transmitters and other necessary equipment to install eight FM stations,
and will also give support in technical and management aspects to guide
those responsible for the facilities,�� said Wilfredo
Morales, general services manager for the commission.

Venezuelan National Radio director Helena Salcedo said the public station
has carried out trial broadcasts in Indigenous languages, using its
repeaters in border zones.

��The new stations will help Indigenous people recover and
preserve their culture, and to recognize it and value it for
themselves,�� Ms. Salcedo said.

Some parts of the country do not receive any Venezuelan radio signal at all.

Mr. Maldonado said that in isolated La Esmeralda, where his community is
located, people can tune in only to Radio Casiquiare (the name of a river
in the Amazon region), which retransmits broadcasts from government radio
stations and is operated by members of the military.

In Paez, a municipality in the extreme northwest of Venezuela, between the
gulf of Venezuela and the Colombian gulf of Guajira, ��you
can easily pick up Colombian television channels, but not Venezuelan
ones,�� said Mar��a Alejandra Gonzalez, a young
Wayau woman who is studying journalism and took the National
Telecommunications Commission course.

��Throughout the Guajira peninsula we can listen to the Fe y
Alegr��a radio station, which transmits in Wayunaiki and
their news programs cover events on both sides of the
border,�� Miss Gonzalez said.

Fe y Alegr��a is a Catholic organization, with radio stations
in several parts of both Colombia and Venezuela. Its programming in the
language of the Wayau, or Guajiro, people is broadcast across the Guajira
peninsula, which mainly falls within Colombian territory, but also extends
into Venezuela.

Miss Gonzalez believes that the new Indigenous radio station, further south
where the Bari, Yucpa and Japreira peoples live, will be able to profit
from the existing experience of Fe y
Alegr��a��s Indigenous-language radio station,
especially the way it has taken up the concerns, claims and proposals of
the Indigenous communities.

��We also want to follow their example by creating an
Indigenous Radiophonic Institute, like Fe y
Alegr��a��s, but based on the new Indigenous
community radio stations,�� said Wayau activist
Anair�B Canbar, who is part of the team leading the recently created
Indigenous Peoples Ministry.

The eight radio stations ��will begin by broadcasting in the
languages of the communities where they are based, but later there will
also be programs to reach other communities within broadcasting range, in
their own languages, as far as possible,�� Canbar said.

Mr. Garc��a is one of those preparing for the multilingual
phase of the radio stations. His mother tongue is Ye��kuana,
but he also speaks the language of a neighboring Indigenous community, the
Yanomami people.

��We want to identify and train Indigenous information workers
in all the communities to work as journalists and send their reports by
radio or by telephone to the radio stations, to provide material for
Indigenous newscasts, which will then interact on the
network,�� Canbar said.

Funding for setting up the Indigenous radio stations is being provided by
the Information Ministry, as part of its program for supporting community
radio. The National Telecommunications Commission has registered 192
community stations so far. The Information Ministry also has oversight of
the Venezuelan National Radio station.

Mr. Morales from the telecommunications commission did not mention specific
figures, but he said ��the investments are neither large nor
costly in comparison with the service they will provide by empowering
Indigenous communities.��

That is what young people like Mr. Garc��a and Mr. Maldonado
are learning new skills for. ��Get ready to project your
voice,�� said their instructor as he gave them the
microphone. ��All Venezuela is listening to you
now.�� At least a part of it will be listening, when the
first of the Indigenous community stations comes on air.

The new stations are scheduled to start broadcasting on Oct. 12, a date
officially known as Columbus Day, but recognized by some groups as
Indigenous Peoples�� Resistance Day.

� Copyright 2007 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com