By Laura Hobson Herlihy
“We have nothing to celebrate with the state oppression and pandemic, but we are sending a message to the youth to continue fighting for our rights in the name of the ancestors,” says Reynaldo Francis, Yatama Miskitu leader.
By Erica Belfi and Danielle DeLuca
On March 12-13, 2020, in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras, 11 Lenca women from radio stations in 7 different communities gathered for two-day workshops on community radio communication with a focus on gender equity organized by Cultural Survival, the Red de Desarrollo Sostenible Honduras (RDS), the Association of Community Media of Honduras (AMCH), and the Central American Network of Indigenous Community Radio Stations.
Honduras is a biodiverse region and two-thirds of its territory is covered by mountains and a protected area of 830,000 hectares that is the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve on the Caribbean Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Without electricity or a telephone signal in the vicinity, a community radio station was almost an impossible dream for the Lenca people of Azacualpa, an Indigenous community of Yamaranguila in Intibucá, Honduras, who believed that as an impoverished community, no one would be interested in assisting them in setting up a radio station.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
