A-Infos (en) South Asia's first community radio station....

[I-AFD_2@anarch.free.de (Nico MYOWNA)]

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 NEPAL: S.ASIA'S FIRST COMMUNITY RADIO STATION OFFERS CLEANUP HOPE

In a sub-continent where governments have long kept a stranglehold on  
radio, community radio could have an extensive impact. Radio Sagarmatha is  
an exciting development from Nepal. Momentum is also picking up elsewhere  
in South Asia, as citizens groups are pressing forward for permissions to  
broadcast from community radio stations.

By Frederick Noronha

New brooms, they say, sweep clean. That's just what a young community  
radio station launched in Nepal intends to do by launching a campaign to  
clean up the air of Kathmandu Valley.

Radio Sagarmatha launched an initiative called Safa Radio -- The Clean Air  
Campaign in early January this year. Radio Sagarmatha, licensed in 1997,  
is South Asia's first independent community-based broadcaster. On the  
airwaves, Radio Sagarmatha presents a daily mix of music and spoken word  
programming, a human package of information, entertainment and education.
Radio Sagarmatha is a project of NEFEJ, the Nepal Forum of Environmental  
Journalists, in collaboration with three other Nepali non-governmental  
organisations, and the development agency of the Danish government,  
Danida.

Air pollution in the Kathmandu Valley is becoming worse and worse day by  
day. Sooty toxic smoke spews from exhaust pipes of a mind-boggling array  
of vehicles racing around the capital's streets.

Five days a week, Radio Safas DANIDA-financed safa (Nepali forclean) tempo  
-- a van-sized three-wheeled electric vehicle that carries a half dozen or  
more people -- measures the level of airpollutants at different points in  
the city.

Results are analysed in a lab, then explained the same day during the  
stations evening community news bulletin, Haalchaal.

Some 30 locations are monitored on a rotating basis. Following five days  
of readings and broadcasts, the cumulative results are discussed on-the- 
air. Monthly results are presented to the media and the public in a press  
conference.

"Safa Radio is an example of how a community can not only present news and  
issues for discussion, but also take a leading role in tackling problems,  
take to the streets and work in the community," said Ian Pringle of Centre  
for International Studies and Cooperation which is a Canadian not-for- 
profit organisation that brings Canadian professionals to work with local  
groups like Radio Sagarmatha.

Playing on the pun, Sagarmatha's supporters say this radiostation sitting  
atop the Himalayan country represents a "himalayan opportunity for public  
interest communications and development in the subcontinent".

Taking the radio out of the station into the communities that the majority  
of Nepalis live in has been the chief objective of Radio Sagarmatha. This  
station is thus seen as a starting point for a wider programme in  
community-based radio in Nepal. "The idea is not to extend Radio  
Sagarmatha's Kathmandu service, but rather to bring the idea of local  
radio to some of Nepal's 90% who live in rural areas and small  
communities," said a spokesperson for the project.

In November 1998, to the surprise of many, tired out by the earlier five  
year struggle to get a license, Radio Sagarmatha received permission to  
run a mobile radio service anywhere in Nepal using its Kathmandu  
frequency, 102.4 FM.

Shortly, Radio Sagarmatha, in partnership with MS Nepal (Denmark) will  
outfit a vehicle with a small studio and transmitter and hit the road. By  
keeping it simple, doing basic training and getting locals involved,  
Sagarmatha Mobile Radio will work to demystify radio and get communities  
interested in starting their own local radios. For most people have never  
been exposed to radio other than national and international services, not  
a type of radio they do for themselves.

Nepal has a long and powerful tradition of oral folk media. As recently as  
fifty years ago, the main sources of news for many communities were  
roaming artists who sang specially composed songs to highlight different  
issues. Radio Sagarmatha has introduced a daily radio serial which  
explores these cultural traditions.

It has also announced plans to grow. In October of 1998, the station made  
the jump from a two-hour to a six-hour daily programme service. A month  
later, permission came for a twenty-four hour service and approval was  
given to run a mobile service.

Communities in other parts of Nepal are thinking about their own local  
stations.

The government has granted independent FM licenses to four commercial  
broadcasters and to the Kathmandu Metropolitan body, bringing the total  
number of licensed FM frequencies emanating from the Kathmandu Valley to  
eight.

Within five years it is conceivable that Nepal will have a network of  
local stations in as many as a dozen communities throughout the country.

This year, Radio Sagarmatha plans new initiatives and programmeformats.  
Including new programming on citizen responsibilities and the legislative  
process, sports and original cultural productions, to day-to-day concerns  
like community events, and the changing environment of the Kathmandu  
Valley.

Radio Sagarmatha could fill a vacuum in information and critical  
perspective at the grassroots level, and work for substantial change by  
influencing those urban dwellers who play a key role in Nepal's political  
and economic decision-making. (ENDS)

frederick noronha, freelance journalist, fred@goa1.dot.net.in
near lourdes convent, saligao 403511 goa india ph 271490 or 278683

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