This project will train rural women in Haiti to make community radio programs aimed at bringing their concerns to the attention of local decision and policy makers. Three training workshops on digital production techniques will empower 15 women from 5 community radio stations to speak publicly about the problems and challenges they face in their daily lives, especially those of poverty, lack of resources, and violence. The project is run by REFRAKA, a non-governmental organisation run by women.
In Haiti women are at the forefront of the struggle to create a peaceful and just society. But their voices are often not heard in important decision-making processes. This situation is worse in rural areas where women are doubly excluded by being both women and poor peasants. Local media ignore them since they lack education and knowledge. This project seeks to overcome this barrier to women's participation by training them to produce and record their own programs using community radio.
This project will train rural women to broadcast publicly about the problems and challenges they face in their daily lives, especially those of poverty, lack of resources, and violence. Women will learn to make programs in different formats and to speak about topics of immediate concern. Three training sessions will take place on digital production techniques for 15 women from 5 of the country's 27 community radio stations. They will also learn how to integrate gender questions into programming.
The long-term impact of these efforts will be the empowerment of rural women, improvement in the livelihoods of communities, and greater resilience and stability in the country. Community media will play a role in enabling a marginalized group - poor rural women - to exercise their right to communicate in a country still facing economic hardship and rebuilding after the devastating earthquake of 2010. Haiti has a long way to go, and this project will have a wide-ranging impact.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
