A proposed youth radio station in Malawi is looking for donations of equipment establish its proposed onair studios and transmission site.

The Head of Project for the Chisomo Community Radio Initiative, Aubrey Ligomeka, has contacted other radio stations, organisations and individuals asking for support in terms of redundant or used radio station equipment in order to establish a youth awareness non-profit-making community radio station in the northern region of Malawi.

The project team is currently working on implementing a youth awareness non-profit making community radio station to bear the name “CHISOMO COMMUNITY RADIO INITIATIVE – C.C.R.I MALAWI”. This will be aimed at transforming, motivating and also empowering the youth through the art of broadcasting since the youth will be the main targeted group and also the beneficiaries of the initiative at large.

This Radio initiative will be located in the Northern Region of Malawi (Mzuzu) and it will cover all the six (6) districts that are found in the Region namely: Chitipa, Karonga, Rumphi, Likoma, Nkhata-bay and Mzimba districts respectively.

Some of the objectives of the Radio initiative are:

• To inspire the youth to become involved in community-based social investment projects (volunteering)
• To provide a forum for engaging youth discussions on issues of local and international importance in various areas such as Agriculture, Environment, Communication and information Technology, Security, Human Rights, Education, Governance and Corruption, Population and also Health and Pandemic diseases etc.
• To create a sense of cooperation, integration or connectedness and unity in the communities across the Northern Region between all ages, social and economic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
• To bring youth voices to the fore and encourage young people from the communities to come together to take action (participation).
• To promote the development and growth of small and medium enterprises (SME’s) among the youths in the communities in all the districts across the Northern Region of Malawi.

Once implemented the community radio will help to:

• Fill the gap that commercial and Christian owned radio stations are not interested to cover on some issues in the communities thereby allowing members of the communities to have a chance to record, produce and broadcast programmes of local interests and also promote or uncover youth hidden skills or talents.
• Act as a bridge that exists between the community leaders and members (especially youths) of the communities thereby promoting transparency and accountability.
• Refrain the youth from evil barbaric acts of political violence that are influenced and also encouraged by political party leaders against their critics.
• Address issues of gender inequalities through education stipends for girls e.g. supporting a girl child initiative campaign on the radio by putting out calls to all concerned stakeholders for sponsorship (campaign for a girl child education) and also provision of civic education programmes on the radio about the importance of promoting 50:50 campaign in both employment, political and government representative positions (equal opportunities).
• Create communities of active producers not passive consumers of the media.
• Formation of Radio youth clubs on various issues or topics in order to find solutions to problems such as environmental pollution or degradation, diseases and unemployment just to mention a few.

The community Radio Station will also help to bring a lot of benefits to the youths and members of the communities across the region, in the sense that it will:

• Help in job creation through volunteerism and students who will be pursuing their studies in the media field at different government local technical colleges will have the chance to work on internship program thereby acquiring skills and experience in citizen journalism, community journalism, radio presenting and news writing and reporting.
• Youth will have more knowledge or information of how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and new borne diseases from healthy experts through the radio.
• Community members will be able to learn the causes of environmental pollution as well as degradation and also how to prevent them through Forestry Technicians or Experts and Environmental Activists on the radio.
• It will also help in Youth and community participation by providing a platform and debating issues affecting youth on daily basis such as Security, Governance (Leadership), Economy, Education, Human Rights, Development Projects, Technology, Wildlife and Renewable Energy, just to mention a few.
• It will help farmers in agricultural cooperatives and other small medium scale enterprises to be linked and exposed to different financial lending institutions or organizations through advertisement thereby having easy access to markets and also help them find solutions from experts on various challenges they are facing.
• Farmers will also have the chance to learn new better methods of farming using modern farming techniques or skills or technology through the Radio via featured programmes with experts from the Agriculture sector.

Below is a list of redundant or used Radio Station equipment that they are requesting:

STUDIO 1` ONAIR

STUDIO 2-PRODUCTION/BACK UP ON AIR

NEWS ROOM

REPORTER KITS/OUTSIDE BROADCASTING

FM TRANSMISSION SITE

STUDIO FURNITURE

90 M GUYED STEEL LATTICE MAST (TOWER)

The project contact details are

Chisomo Community Radio Initiative – C.C.R.I. P.O Box 399 Mzuzu Malawi

Central – Africa

Cell: + 265 99 11 74 1 77

EMAIL: [email protected]