It’s been a while since we have last updated this blog. But now that we are back in the Netherlands it is easier to follow up because we can access the the blogsites again. Weblogs are made inaccessible in Ethiopia because it is found to hard to control what people write on it. In a country that keeps so much control over media, it was a big thing for us as well as the Ethiopians to get the broadcast license for community radio. Jimare (Amharic for -‘the starting point’ and abbreviation of Jimma Community Radio) independent radio station in
Ethiopia.

Picture: The community meeting on which we got the license from the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority

Apart from being the first in Ethiopia, this radio station will be the first FM radio to be heard in Jimma and surroundings. Being a pioneer is nice and sounds ‘cool’ but is also difficult. A whole new mind-set needs to be built and we have to start from scratch in every step we take. It is hard work, and we can not learn from others in Ethiopia. We do use a lot of readers and books about community radio that are produced in other developing countries, which help us a lot in decision making and developing training materials.

After celebrating the license we could start getting the equipment from customs (which was there already for a few weeks). This took some time, some stamps and many letters but finally everything came through. We also almost finished the studio space: after a long, very long, procedure of purchasing the building materials, now all the double walls are filled with sound isolating styrofoam, and a 1 by 2 meter window is now placed between the newsroom and the studio.

Picture: The Radio studio still under contruction, between the walls you see styrofoam for sound isolation, double doors and double glass are not yet placed on this picture.

At the same time we still had to employ one of the most important employees: the daily manager of the studio. After three announcements (of which one in the national newspaper), a lot of meetings and about 30 applications, we found 4 candidates that fitted the needs of all involved parties in the selection procedure. Finally one was anonymously chosen to be our new heart of the station, a former radio Ethiopia manager with a diploma in media management.
This new manager was joining the four other employees now: our technician, two journalists and a secretary. They are really becoming a close hard working team now, which is very nice to see.

Another important thing we had to do before our temporary leave, was getting all people involved at the radio station trained before going on air. We have been in contact with many professionals in the field working in Ethiopia, including BBC World Service Trust, Internews, GTZ, PFMA, DED and ZFD. With them we have organized different trainings for our employees, board members and trainers. There was a basic journalism training by Internews, a management and community radio training by the Ethiopian PFMA and a Linux-training by GTZ. In the coming year BBC WST, the ZFD, GTZ and Internews will continue training to Jimare. We are very thankful for all the help we are getting.

Picture: Training on the concept of community radio to the board, the employees and the trainers

At this moment there are already three other community radio stations that have a license for community radio. About ten others are in their preparation to get the license. We hope that Jimare can function as a training centre for these community radio stations. We have gathered a lot of knowledge and experience the last months that we think can be very useful for other starting radio stations. We have also trained 8 trainers who are now training the volunteer journalists from the community. These trainers could also train the volunteers of other stations. We are now working together with the organizations mentioned before, to make a community radio manual and training scheme that can be used all over Ethiopia. All in order to spread community radio and
spread knowledge and democracy.

We will return to Ethiopia in the beginning of July. We will than work on the training centre, the spread of the windup radio's and extra training (especially on ethics and conflict resolution on the radio).

Picture: The wind-up radios that we are going to disseminate in Jimma and surroundings

The radio has gone on air for testing yesterday! May 21stwill be the official opening of the radio station. So a lot of things are happening in Jimma in our absence, we think that is a good sign!