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First Posted on Inside Mindanao (www.insidemindanao.com) on March 1, 2009

Gender Equality in Community Radio has many Languages
By Bianca Miglioretto

"When I attended a training in my radio station, they seperated the men and the women. The men were given technical training while the women were not. I insisted that I also wanted to learn the studio operation and editing, but they would not let me."

Mariani from Darsa FM in Aceh, Indonesia is not alone. Many women experience this kind of exclusion or marginalization in the operation of their community radio stations. The situation does not look any better in the management of the stations.

In a survey conducted by Isis International and AMARC–WIN Asia Pacific (AP), women only represent 28 per cent of the leadership positions, given their difficulty to participate in the decision–making processes in their stations. These important decisions include their very engagement with the station and the radio programmes themselves.

Women like Mariani want to change this situation.They no longer want to accept their token participation in the community radio. It is precisely for this reason that AMARC–WIN AP developed the Gender Policy for Community Radio and released it on March 8, 2008.

In a simple language, this document explains what gender equality means in community radio and how it can be achieved. It demonstrates the necessary measures which can enable and encourage women's equal participation in all fields and levels of the radio station. These measures may come in the forms of a special women's training, quotas for women in leadership, security measures to guarantee women's safety, day care facilities and arrangements and flexible working hours, among others.

"The Gender Policy for Community Radio is exactly what we need in Africa. It is simple and clear with usefull tips and ideas. The National Community Radio Forum of South Africa adopted it at the last general assembly. The challenge now is to convience the individual stations to adopt and implement the policy. That is where we find most resistance;" remarked Rebone Molefe from TUT FM 96.2 in South Africa.

Indeed the Gender Policy for Community Radio earned a lot of positive feedback when it was presented in different media fora around the world. The board of AMARC Europe endorsed it to all its members. At the Our Media Conference in Ghana, African women welcomed the policy as a document they can take home to strengthen women's participation in their community radio stations. The AMARC Asia Pacific board also endorsed it to its members. In the region, Interteam held workshops on the policy in Afghanistan and in Bangladesh it was presented at a multi–stakesholder roundtable.

These international conferences and board endorsements are crucial in the promotion of the policy. However, they remain inadequate in effecting an impact in terms of women's more meaningful participation in community radio stations. Instead we need the support of both men and women in each and every station to understand, appreciate, adopt and implement the policy.

One barrier to this vision was language. Initially, the policy was only available in the colonial languages: English, French and Spanish. As a proactive response, members of AMARC–WIN and Isis International have been coordinating efforts in finding volunteers who could translate the Gender Policy in as many local languages possible. Within no time, we found volunteers who have committed to translate the document to different languages: Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Bangla, Bisaya, Chinese, Dari, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Lao, Nepali, Pashto, and Tagalog.

One of the translators is Cai Yiping the Executive Director of Isis International: "In China, there is no community radio yet but this policy is very useful for the government radio stations at national, provincial and local level and for the NGOs who broadcast on the internet or in the community–based government radios. This is why I am happy to translate it into Chinese."

This March 8, International Women's Day 2009 AMARC–WIN relaunches the Gender Policy for Community Radio in 17 different languages. Don't miss your chance to promote gender equality. Download the policy in your language from the AMARC–Website www.amarc.org and share it with your radio station, friends and network.

If you cannot find your language and wish to translate the four–page document into your language, you are more than welcome to do so, just contact the AMARC Asia Pacific regional office suman@wlink.com.np or Isis International bianca@isiswomen.org.

END