Anselmo Xunic Cabrera, manager of Cultural Survival's Community Radio Program, traveled to Costa Rica to present about our newest community radio project at a three-day conference on projects working with marginalized and excluded communities in Central America on June 12-14. Anselmo presented on this project alongside our new partner, Aurelio Sho of the Tumul K’in Learning Center in Toledo, Belize. The Tumul K’in Learning Center and Sobrevivencia Cultural will be working together on a project that will expand our community radio network to include Indigenous community radio stations in Belize and Q’eqchi’ communities in Guatemala that have yet to create their own community radio stations.
Our new project is focused on strengthening the participation and integration of Indigenous communities in Belize and Guatemala through community radio. We will be conducting exchanges between Radio Ak’Kutan, a Q’eqchi’ community radio station in Belize, and five well-established community radio stations here in Guatemala. These exchanges will allow Radio Ak’Kutan members to learn about how things work in successful community radio stations, and will allow them to benefit from our large network of radio volunteers here in Guatemala.
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Some community radio volunteers creating a radio spot on Indigenous rights at our most recent workshop.
As well, we will be conducting a youth radio forum for Q’eqchi’ youth in Guatemala and Belize. These youth will learn about radio production, social activism, important issues in their communities and how to cover these issues on the air. During this forum, we will begin to build a network of youth in community radio. These youth will maintain contact through social media, and will begin to create educational youth radio programs within their communities.
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Some young girls speaking on the air at Radio Sembrador, a community radio station in San Pedro La Laguna, Sololá, during their weekly children's program.
Finally, we will work with an indigenous rights organization, the Defensoria Q’eqchi’, to facilitate the development of a Q’eqchi’ radio station in El Estor, Izabal, Guatemala. In El Estor, there are 15,000 Q’eqchi’ speaking residents, yet there doesn’t exist a community radio station for these residents. The creation of a community radio station in this region will provide news and entertainment, as well as the ability for communities to organize social actions that will contribute to their development.
This project is the first of its kind for our Community Radio Program in Guatemala. We will not only be expanding our network to include isolated communities in Guatemala, but also internationally to include Belizean communities. Finally, this conference in Costa Rica is the perfect place to showcase our work to other, like-minded organizations in Latin America. These actions are just a few in many steps we are currently taking to strengthen and expand our Indigenous Community Radio Program in Guatemala.
