Training is finished!

Remember: you can, and should, do it yourself! This was the final message for the volunteers before they became the official volunteer journalists for Jimma Mahebereseb Radio. At this very moment, the journalists are crowding in front of large papers on which they can fill in their program groups, their function within the group and, most important, the subject of the program. Of course there are already quite a lot of music programs, a talent show, a edutainment program, and more is not possible for me to read at this moment because everyone is standing in front of the paper.
This week is also the last week for solicitors to apply for the job of full-time journalist or manager. It really feels like we are handing over the studio to the people from Jimma. We hope that maybe one or two of the volunteers will be appointed as staff of the radio station since then they already know about the software and how everything
goes at the radio station. We will see...

Why does everything break?

A question that arises every once a while is ones life. This time time the reason for this throught was the fact that we were getting telephone calls that no-one was receiving the station on their radios. So we rushed to the transmitter to find that the forwarded power by the transmitter was almost zero, while it should be about 700 WATT. We were quite devastated by the fact that a brand new 5000 Euro transmitter broke within six months. The volunteers on the contrary were convinced that 'we will win', so with that spirit we've opened the transmitter but couldn't directly find the problem. We were happy that the end exciters didn't burn out completely. For some time we were thinking it was maybe a problem of too less current on the power net, but this wasn't the case. So we started e-mailing with the manufacturer in Italy. The procedure is like this: we describe what we see/measure, and they email us back with their conclusions and new point to measure. Today we probably found the problem: two broken transistors. But we are waiting for a reaction from Italy...

Tech Talk

Although some earlier posts about computer systems were not
appreciated by all, we are very proud to announce that all community
radio stations in Ethiopia will run on a Ubuntu Linux. To facilitate
this process well, we've packaged installations Cd's that can be
installed and the stations are ready to go: with the network, all the
audio editing and radio automation programs preconfigured. Even the
logging PC which holds the archive of everything that has been
broadcasted, runs completely automatic. It doesn't even need an
monitor. The idea is that the transmitter and this computer are
connected to one power source so that when the transmitter is switched
on, the computer starts to archive immediately. Every hour, the
program content is written to a file with name and date so if the
authorities might come, they can directly access the archive. Of
course this is also very useful for the database of the radio
stations, so that they only have to write in a sheet when there was a
program and about what it was, so it can be re-used if it is actual.
In the mean time also the first posters of the manual are printed and
the results are fabulous. We'll add one as an picture! When everything
is finished and tested, we will put it all online on this website.

Training 'em all

'Why is there no double click for the right mouse button?', 'Is it allowed to use local words on the radio?', just two questions on normal training day. it's about three weeks ago that the training commenced, and it's been busy. the studio is like a bee-hive of volunteers coming in and out at almost every time of the day.
The volunteers are trained in groups of twelve in interviewing, audio editing, rules and regulations and script writing. Every training subject has new talents and people who need extra attention. Imagine yourself a class of which at least half of the people never touched a computer before. But after two hours of explanation and practicing, they are actually audio editing. here, the young people are clearly taking the lead in picking things up quickly.

Every week there is an assignment which will lead to an complete radio item at the end of the training. So everything the volunteers learn, will be put directly into practice. In the first practical lessons, the creative usage of the voice, the elderly are clearly in advantage because they have no problem with singing, screaming and 'crying' in front of a group. It takes some time before all the people get rid of their shame. And there are some things that will be difficult for quite some time. Paying respect is very important in certain relations, i.e young-old, female-male, everyone-higher official. This makes it difficult for people to evaluate each other radio items, or to cut people of if they give rubbish answers (or just answers which are way too long) with interviews.

But that also popped some questions with us: is the short-cut, fast-edited and pre-scripted radio program as we are used to it in the Netherlands and other countries in 'the west', the perfect radio program for every condition? It's hard to say. A senior producer at the BBC talked about the bad quality of Ethiopian radio in general, but is it in the eye of the Ethiopian?

There are some things that one should respect and that everyone should learn. But maybe those thing belong more to journalistic ethics then plain journalism, such as: a strive for objectivity, balanced reporting (always let all the parties have their say), and completeness.

These thing seem clear for our trainees, but there are some other things that are much more difficult. For instance: making program attractive to listen to. There is a common opinion that says: if information is serious, you cannot make jokes. Jokes also include creative use of the voice. So that means, from the moment you touch on something serious such as HIV/Aids, women rights, etc etc, the voice gets monotonous.

But it's great to see the people grow in their roles. The shy Muslim girls who came in very quiet are now laughing and singing with children in the children's program, and the cleaner-technician is handling the mixer as if she never did something else before!

So despite some obstacles, everything is going really fine and we are extremely happy and proud of all of our journalists and employees who are doing a great job.

If one envisions putting up a radio station in Ethiopia, one would probably think of soldering, lots of wires and training. This was also our idea when we went to Ethiopia, one year ago. And at last, we've reached that point. At this moment we are training sixty volunteers from the community in different aspects of radio.
It's not that meetings aren't important, nor that the work for the past year has been dull, but we now finally really get to work with our target group: the people from the Jimma Community, who are enthusiastic about radio, about creating their own medium, to tell and to listen to their own stories.
Unfortunately, we haven't been able to employ new journalists or a manager yet, which means that our technician, Ghezeghne, is currently working seven days a week to do the broadcasts. Between the programs he also trains the volunteers. Ghezeghne proves himself to be a great technician, and one can see that he used to be a teacher before.
There are now three subgroups to be trained: technicians, afaan oromo journalists and amharic journalists. The first group finished their training on audio editing and mobile recording and are momentarily working on their assignments, which brings a lot of life to the radio station. All the computers our now being used for a large part of the day and the newsroom is starting to get that chaotic feel; nice.

After a leave of two months we are back in Ethiopia.

The rainy season is on its top here and the roads are sticky and full of mud. In the car to Jimma the other passengers already inform us about the ' excellent broadcasting of the radiostation. Everyone seems to know about its existence, the only complaint is that they don't broadcast as much hours as they would like them to.

Optimistic but also with a bit of doubt and fear of what we will see when getting back we arrive in Jimma.

We are welcomed enthusiastic by our friends and colleagues and within a few hours we have sucked ourselves in the work again as our clean dutch shoes are shoes are sucked into the sticky mud of he dirt roads of Jimma.

A lot changed at the station, most of it for the good although some problems have also arised. Let us list it shortly:


- The studio is finished: new electricity lines are placed, finally the double glass between the studio and the newsroom is in place, everything is painted:


Photo 1: The newsroom, you can see the studio through the window, the double doors make the studio sound-proof. In the corner you can see the secretary Tigist.

The house of the guard is finished, the studio is fully equipped and working, and at this moment about ten people are outside working on the garden of the station:



Photo 2: The garden of the radio station, the gardeners are taking a shelter at the new guard house.

The radio is functioning: it is broadcasting three times a day, two hours in the early morning (between 6:45 and 8:45) one hour at lunchtime and two hours at night when people get home from work. At this moment they are only broadcasting music and the jingle of Jimare. It is great to be able to tune in at 102.0 FM and hear 'our' radiostation!



Photo 3: Gezagehegne, the technician, is broadcasting music from the radio studio.

- There is an ongoing conflict between the board of the radiostation (who represent the community and who are the official owner of the station) and the Jimma University (who gives the station a sustainable backbone by paying for the employees and taking the responsibility for the studio and the running costs of the station). In our eyes this conflict is mostly a lack of trust in each other and a powerstruggle due to unclearity/disagreement of the functions of both parties. This conflict is getting worse and is fought over the heads of the employees.

- The conflict between the board and the JU has created a lot of uncertainty for the employees. This seems to have been one of the main reasons for the two journalists to leave the radiostation and go back to their former work. Two weeks ago the studio manager followed them and also left.

- One studio to transmitter link (STL) is broken so that we cannot use the teletower but from a small tower near the studio. The consequence is that we are transmitting only for 20 kilometres instead of a radius of 75 kilometres.



Especially the sudden leave of the employees was a step back. Although the technician, the secretary and the volunteers are taking over in an excellent way, we need more people to run the station. We think that the first thing that needs to be done now, is to enhance the communication between the board and the JU and to resolve the conflicts going on. We can directly make use of he skills we learned at the peacebuilding and
conflictresolution- training we had in the Netherlands. After that we can start recruiting new personnel. The next step will be the training of volunteers and to enhance the amount of hours of broadcasting and the amount of people we reach.

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!