Radio For Peace International- a global community radio station - |
|
In this edition
The Quitirrisí by James Latham, RFPI Founder The road is pure Costa Rica as it winds
along the western foothills of the San José valley up to the
mountain top city of Puriscal. Along the way it passes through several small communities nestled on the steep
mountainsides. When you dare to look down,
a dizzying view of the lush green vibrant valley can be seen below. It
is here that the indigenous Quitirrisí live in small homes
precariously poised on the dramatic slopes 3,000 feet above the valley. Numbering around 1200, many make their
living creating arts and crafts that they sell along the side of the
road. The artwork is renown for the beautiful colors that are dyed into
the cloth and fiber which are then used in hammocks, handbags, hats and
baskets. I have often stopped on my way from the station to visit these
caring artisans and to look over their work. One day, after a pleasant
afternoon of sharing information about our The woman rapidly finishes a basket and starts another and asks what it is that I do. I explain the radio station to her, emphasizing that it is not a commercial station, and that it receives support from listeners. She seems a bit dubious about the listener-supported part and smiles. I explain that we sometimes offer premiums to our supporters who donate. “Things like t-shirts,” I explain to her. She looks over and smiles “Well if you ever run out of shirts, we have plenty of gifts here.” We both laugh. I wander around the shop and buy a brightly colored handbag. I wave goodbye and merge with the traffic heading down into the valley, her suggestion echoing in my mind. A few months later, camera in hand, my assistant 9-year-old Amelia Rose and I returned to the Quitirrisí with a proposal. Coffee 
This is unmistakably gourmet coffee: picked, aged and roasted under
perfect conditions, in the world- renowned Dota Tarrazu Mountains of
Costa Rica. The coffee is produced by small farmers - some 800 families
working in a co-operative venture using environmentally safe processing
techniques to produce an exquisite single origin coffee.
I
tried a cup and was delighted with its rich flavor. And yes
we are offering the coffee, along with Quitirrisí shoulder bags,
as a premium to help continue to bring progressive voices to people
around the globe. With this donation, not only are you supporting a progressive radio station, but you will be supporting the indigenous Quitirrisí artisans and small independent coffee farmers in Costa Rica as well. If that sounds like the right thing to do please donate today. Thanks! Field Studies Resume At RFPI
RFPI’s Return to ShortwaveAs
we write this edition of Vista, RFPI's negotiating committee is meeting
with it's If
you or a friend would be interested in receiving RFPI's programming via
a podcast, please contact
Program Director Joe Bernard. Children's Radio In Mallorca by Eva Carolin Ulmer
Earlier this year, I had
the chance to work on a radio program by and for kids on the Spanish
island of Mallorca. Before launching this project, I had been producing
features for children for West German State radio (WDR) in Cologne and
Hessian State Radio (HR) in Frankfurt.
The weekly half-hour
program (from 6 until 6.30pm) was hosted by a local radio station,
Radio Calvia, which is heard in an area of approximately 40 km². The program took place
within a project called Mundo Joven (Young
World) on Radio Calvia and consisted of four-half hour slots reserved
for different age groups – children on Mondays, teenagers on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, and university students on Wednesdays. I was volunteer
coordinator with Mundo Joven, together with a Colombian
colleague, Mario Bolaños. The Tuesday to Thursday programs were
largely music and talk shows with invited guests on such diverse topics
as the environment, religion, sports, fashion, or values. The children’s program was different. Because this was quite a time-consuming after-school activity, we had two teams of six child reporters each between 8 and 12 years old. The teams alternated, one group coming in one week, the other group the next week. In addition to hosting the show, the children had to prepare for it. The show consisted of news, announcements, jokes, riddles, tongue twisters, stories and radio plays. News and announcements were chosen by the children themselves on whatever they considered news or worthwhile weekend or holiday activities to announce. Thus a child might speak enthusiastically of a new pet he got, or another might go into detail on a planned trip with her parents. The coordinators always prepared some back up news and announcements but otherwise intervened as little as possible. Through feed-back from
friends, parents listening and ourselves, the children got a feeling
what kind of news interested not only themselves but their listeners,
too. Jokes, tongue
twisters and riddles were very popular and lots of fun. Some children
also brought short stories with them to the studio because they very
much liked to read. However they were usually keener on reading than on
discussing the story afterwards. The radio plays were based on the UNESCO series Cuentos para la Paz (Stories for Peace). I wrote scripts from the stories and we rehearsed them once before producing them live in the studio. The children chose the characters they wanted to play and the sounds they wanted to produce. We also produced the sounds of the plays live - footsteps, rivers, rain, birds, thunder, wind, a heart beat, etc. For example, if you gently roll a balloon filled with grains of rice on a table, it sounds like raindrops. At first the children admired me because I knew "how to make rain and thunder," but soon they came up with their own ideas how to imitate sounds. Making sounds was
definitely the favorite part of the program, but they took the reading
very seriously as well and prepared their parts at home. Once in a
while a child would get nervous after making a mistake and stop
reading. Then we had to improvise and invent something to bridge the
gap. The stories always contained a message about values such as
tolerance, courage, or honesty, which we would discuss together at the
end. I remember that it took
some time to establish friendly relations with the station manager
because naturally the children were active, funny, and noisy. It was a
challenge too to convince the person in the control room to let me come
into the studio with all the sound materials - a bucket filled with
water for the water sounds, for example. It is a bit of work and requires a lot of flexibility to coordinate a program with children if you don’t want to stifle their spontaneity and creativity with set production plans. However the four months I was with Mundo Joven were extremely rewarding for me. It was amazing how the children turned into little journalists confidently speaking in front of the mike. Their ideas and energy brought fresh wind into the station making both young and adult listeners wonder, think and laugh out loud. Dear readers, before you go
remember to tune into RFPI’s online webcast.
And remember that your support is needed today. Please send your
contribution in check or money order to P.O. Box 3165, Newberg,
OR 97132, USA. A bag of Elena Duran De Vars coffee
is waiting for you…
Vista
On-Line editor: Victoria Vargas © 2005, Radio For Peace International |
March, 2005
work at
RFPI and hearing about theirs, I had an invitation to take a look at
their “workshops.” These are open-air areas near the small road-side
stores where craftspeople dye and process the plants. “All of the raw
material comes from our land.”
Pacifica counterpart to work out details of
a donation to help restart RFPI's shortwave broadcast. General Manager
James Latham had this to say regarding the return: “It has taken longer
then expected for our return to shortwave but we are looking at a start
up later this year, Pacifica's support in this has been
essential.” While the return is still months away, you can tune
into RFPI's progressive programming on the net right now by 
