Preserve Guatemalan Culture With Community Radio

Happy Holidays to all of our generous supporters!  We hope this message finds you well and hopefully staying warm as the winter weather is finally upon us, even here in Nahualá (although we are thankfully lacking the snow some of you are no doubt experiencing).   

The past few months have been relatively busy for the radio station, with several nearby communities hosting their annual town fairs.  The radio had the opportunity to broadcast remotely from many of these locations, providing listeners who may not been able to attend the festivities with live coverage of parades, marimba bands and other activities.  One of the larger fairs covered by the radio was in the neighboring department of Totonicapan.  Being one of the larger municipalities in the area, the radio provided coverage of the fair for almost two weeks in October. 

Nawal Estereo was also fortunate enough to celebrate its 48^th anniversary this past November with several fun and interactive activities for the Nahualá community.  The anniversary weekend was kicked off with a traditional Mayan ceremony conducted by a Mayan priestess and involving all of the radio personnel.  In addition to a series of concerts by local area musical groups during the weekend of November 20^th and 21^st, the radio station also hosted a half-marathon and cycling race to commemorate 48 incredible years as the voice of Nahualá.  More than 50 participants competed in each event, not only from Nahualá but other communities in the department of Sololá and as far away as the far-western department of San Marcos.  Both races took place along the Inter-American Highway, with onlookers from several communities out in full support of the runners and bike riders along the way.  After the festivities the winners were awarded with trophies and the radio hosted a lunch in honor of former co-workers and board members associated with the radio throughout the years to conclude the anniversary activities. 

Most recently the radio hosted a focus group with 15 volunteers from the Nahualá community to assess the effectiveness of our daily syndicated news program Noticiero Intercultural Maya K’at.  The Maya K’at program runs Monday through Friday at the station from 11:00 to 12:00 and provides listeners with the local, national and international news of the day in the Mayan language of K’iche.  The focus group was sponsored by one of Nawal Estereo’s affiliate associations FGER (Guatemalan Federation of Radio Schools) and was used to find out what about the daily programming is beneficial for listeners, what they would like to hear more of, and if they have any suggestions for improving the content of the programming.  The event was a big success and the radio personnel are currently in the process of evaluating all of the data collected and sending it to our associates at FGER to hopefully improve this valuable service to our listeners. 

With the holidays coming up we hope some of you will take the time to keep Nawal Estereo in mind for any charitable giving you might be considering.  Your generous donations have already allowed us to bring many of the services described above and in earlier updates to our listeners and our community, and we hope to be able to continue doing so for many years going forward.  Many thanks to those of you who have already graciously donated, we are forever grateful.  Best wishes to you and your loved ones this holiday season and a very happy new year. 

Sincerely,

Pete McNamee

Pedro Sohom Cotiy

And the Personnel of Nawal Estereo 93.1 FM