By Kondwani Magombo
Mangochi, November 5, Mana: Government says it is going to train community radio personnel in the country to enhance their capacity and maximise the community radios’ contribution towards national development.
Minister of Information, Gospel Kazako made the disclosure on Tuesday when he visited two community radios, Dzimwe and Lilanguka in Mangochi to appreciate their working environment, successes and challenges the radios are facing.
Kazako described community radios as a powerful tool for promoting the development agenda at community level, hence, the need for well trained personnel to achieve the intended goal.
“We know community radios are struggling a lot but they are still keeping themselves on air. We need to create an environment that allows them growth,” said Kazako.
“Shortly, we will be training community radio personnel including engineers [because] we’ve noticed that there are gaps and one of these gaps is monitoring of signals,” he added.
Kazako said community radios have to start working towards financial independence by commercialising their signals and explore opportunities that are out there.
He hailed Dzimwe Community Radio, the first and oldest community radio in Malawi, for being ‘very organized’ and resilient to various challenges throughout the years.
Kazako also hailed Lilanguka Community Radio for its concept of broadcasting 70 per cent of its programs in Yao and also bringing together people from various religions.
“One element that I liked so much about Lilanguka Community Radio is that they are becoming a unifying factor; founded on Christian faith, the radio’s schedule gives room to other religions,” said Kazako, adding that radios must unite people and not divide them.
Kazako, however, cautioned the community radios against politics or specific ideologies, saying doing so would narrow the radios’ focus making them less popular.
The two community radios generally raised similar challenges which included lack of proper equipment, funds, transport and infrastructure, of which Kazako said government would look into.
| Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (MACRA) Director of Broadcasting, Fergus Lipenga also hailed the community radios for their contribution towards the country’s development. Lipenga said MACRA would continue to support the radios to ensure that members of the communities are able to follow and participate in various issues that concern them. Dzimwe was established in 1998 with funding from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as the communities’ platform for tabling issues that concern them. On the other hand, Lilanguka (Yao word meaning light) is an arm of Operation Mobilisation (OM), a global Christian missionary organisation. The radio station was licensed in October, 2016 before it opened its airwaves in November, 2017. |
