San Manuel is a small Indigenous community of the Tseltal and Ch'ol speaking people, located in the first canyon that forms the first two mountain ranges in front of the plains of the Gulf of Mexico and at the height of the city of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico. According to the 2020 census, the community is formed by 390 people. But in reality it has more than 700 inhabitants, because many inhabitants were not counted in the census for unknown reasons.
We are a radio group composed of Mapuche Lafkenche from Budi, Chile, an ancestral territory located in the ninth region of the Araucanía, a Wallmapu (traditional territory of the Mapuche people). We are Indigenous farmers and subsist on raising small-scale livestock. We are adult speakers of the Mapuche language. We are an autonomous media, self-financed mainly by the communities we serve.
On November 26, 2006, more than 20 people met in Chuicaxtún, Canton Chivax, Totonicapán, Guatemala, to create the project of Community Radio La Niña 88.5 FM. Without any prior technical knowledge of radio broadcasting, production, programming, administration, or how to install a transmitter, we took our first steps in community communication.
Since mid-2021, the project "Strengthening Radio Communication, Organization, and Struggles of the Kakataibo Peoples," has been implemented by the Native Federation of Kakataibo Communities (FENACOKA) with the participation of youth and women and supported by Cultural Survival's Indigenous Community Media Fund.
By Nati Garcia (Maya Mam, CS Staff) and Jonathan Gonzalez Quiel (Ngäbe)
By Dev Kumar Sunuwar (Koĩts-Sunuwar, CS Staff)
"I am sometimes asked what it’s like living in the 'disaster hit district' and running community radio. People often are surprised by me, being a woman station manager, and their questions are mainly about the role that community radio plays in informing locals living in an area at risk of disaster and the sustainability of radio itself," says Sunita Lama, Station Manager of Radio Jugal, a 2021 Cultural Survival Indigenous Community Media Fund grant partner.
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.
