amarc%web@cdp.uucp (10/08/89)
/* Written 5:58 pm Oct 7, 1989 by web:amarc in cdp:amarc.general */
/* ---------- "Sri Lanka CR Evaluated" ---------- */
REVIEW OF RADIO PROJECT EVALUATION
Mahaweli Community Radio Project - An Evaluation
Victor T. Valbuena
Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Centre (AMIC)
Occasional Paper No. 22
Singapore 1988 English 56pp
Cost US$ 4.00 Available from AMIC
Sri Lanka's Mahaweli Community Radio (MCR) may not be the best
example of community radio in Asia, but it is certainly the best
documented. Valbuena's evaluation includes a review of the
research done to date, plus some original insights into the role
of community radio in the development process.
The MCR project began in 1981 as an experiment of the Sri Lanka
Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC). It was one small part of a
large development project opening up some 125,000 hectares
(312,000 acres) of newly irrigated land and which included
schools, roads, irrigation, social and health services, etc..
The development project involved the resettlement of almost one
million people and their adoption of agricultural techniques
suitable to the new land.
The MCR project involves two types of community radio. The first
of these incorporates production teams sent out to the newly
established villages to produce participatory programs which are
then broadcast on regional radio stations three times weekly.
The production teams, armed with portable recording, mixing and
editing equipment visit a village twice before producing the
program. The first time they talk to the villagers and record
interviews with them. It is during this initial visit that they
determine the theme or focus of the program. When they return
the second time two weeks later, they edit the program in a
public area. The villagers are encouraged to make comments and
suggestions on the final program as it is being edited. On this
second trip the production team also records an elaborate
"cultural show" put on by village residents. Parts of this show
are incorporated into the final program.
The other experiment is with a local community radio station
broadcasting to a 30 sq km area. Girandurukotte Community Radio
(GCR). The radio station employees a minimal production staff
both because this is less expensive and because it practically
requires the desired community participation. As project
personnel put it, three producers will not be able to produce
quality programming "unless they are supported by a core group of
volunteers from the community."
Not surprisingly Valbuena concludes that community participation
is greater in the local GCR project than the regional MCR.
However it is disappointing that his evaluation does not
adequately address the question of relative success of the two
projects in terms of their contribution to community and regional
development. He does note that SLBC has decided to set up twelve
more local stations in the next five years, leaving the reader
with the impression that the local model is being favoured for
future projects but without the information that would support
that impression.
The most significant conclusion presented in the report is that
the developmental objectives of either regional or local radio
projects and the settlement project were best achieved when the
those objectives were in harmony. There are numerous examples of
attempts at promoting projects by either the radio projects or
the settlement workers which failed because the two did not work
together. However, when the two work together on a single
project, the combination of the radio and development field
staff's interpersonal relations with the villagers is amplified
to a degree much greater than the sum of the two. Undoubtedly
this conclusion, as with much of the information in this study,
is applicable to all community radio, no matter what their
objectives.
Bruce Girard
---
Patt Haring | United Nations | Did u read
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information | misc.headlines.unitex
patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange | today?
-=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-