In celebration of World Radio Day this past Saturday, the BBC World Service released an hour-long documentary about five different community radio stations around. the world. Beginning with Cameroon’s Radio Taboo, a solar-powered station started by an artist, presenter Maria Margaronis then takes us to Romania’s Danube Delta, which is focused on preserving the region’s unique language and history. We also auditorily travel to Tamil Naud, India, Bolivia, and the Navajo Nation to hear from stations that strive to serve the needs of their communities using a medium that can be heard aboard fishing boats, in remote mining communities and on the road across a sprawling First Nation.
Margaronis lets the presenters and producers speak for themselves, as we tune in to their broadcasts, and also hear from the listeners who depend on these lifelines of information and culture. The documentary is produced by David Goren, the radio enthusiast, journalist and researcher behind the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map. (Hear more about that project on Radio Survivor Podcast #138.)
Voices, music and sound transmitter through the ether is still a magical phenomenon. So much so that the fishermen of Tamil Nadu rig up antenna extensions on their boats to keep their local station tuned in when they sail out of its normal radius of 17 nautical miles.
I can’t recommend “World Wide Waves: The sounds of community radio” enough. It’s well worth an hour of your time.
