FIJI NOW HAS A NEW TEAM OF WOMEN-COMMUNITY RADIO BROADCASTERS

May 27, 2005 - (FemLINK Pacific) Fiji now has a new team of community radio broadcasters following a joint training exercise conducted by femLINKpacific: Media Initiatives for Women, in conjunction with the two major women's networks in Fiji the National Council of Women and the Soqosoqo Vakamarama I Taukei (the indigenous women's network), and as Fiji Nursing Association representative, Litia Veitata said: "The workshop has brought together membership of the National Council of Women Fiji and the Soqosoqo Vakamarama for a practical community radio training initiative; in fact we started learning about our women's community radio initiative and how we can get involved from day 1 when we all got together and wrote and recorded our own stories. Participants have come from a range of backgrounds, professional and community based, we are young and older women and we had very little if any experience in radio," she added.
 
The participants represented the provinces of Macuata, Rewa, Namosi, Lau and Tailevu, and the women's groups such as the DORCAS Welfare Society, the Salvation Army, the Fiji YWCA, the Methodist Women's Fellowship, Virtues Project Fiji, the women's group of the Fiji Disabled People's Association, PPSEAWA Fiji Chapter and Catholic Women?s League.
 
Twenty women, including young women under the age of 30, undertook the 3 day training which enabled them to not only understand the basic operations as well as the station philosophy of femTALK 89.2FM (the women's suitcase radio operated and managed by femLINKpacific) but also prepare for and participate in a local community broadcast on Saturday (25 June):  "We have learnt about (a) what this community radio initiative is and how it can make a difference for us (b) explain why (c) explain some of the practical training that has helped," said Vilisi Veremalua.
 
"As a trained health professional, a member of the Fiji Nursing Association I can see how we can be sharing important health information through the women's radio when it goes out to broadcast to women in their communities," added Veitata
 
"As the representatives of the Methodist Women's Fellowship, Deaconess Marieta and I have learnt that this women's community radio initiative is so important to not only reach our membership in their local communities but it is also a way that we can get more people talking about their issues, their concerns in their own communities," said Randini Talatala Joana Waqairatu.
  
The training also was an opportunity for the participants to learn about important policy issues connected to Fiji's first mobile women's community radio initiative, including the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, titled Women, Peace and Security, as well as the Fiji Government's commitment to Gender Equality in Shared Decision Making.
 
A follow up training programme is planned for late July for this new group of community radio broadcasters and femLINKpacific hopes that they will be able to mobilise the necessary funding to keep building on the skills of the women and young women who now belong to a small, yet growing group of advocates not only for community broadcasting, but for the mobile women's community radio initiative in Fiji: "We are looking forward to continuing to build on our community radio broadcasting skills and we hope that we will also be able to see additional funding to keep this broadcast team together because collectively we feel we can make a difference to hear what our members and sisters have to say in their own communities, but also ?we know and say yes, there is a need for women's media here in Fiji. When we came here on Wednesday we were community radio broadcasters in the making and today we can say we have made it, and we hope that if people are serious about women sharing in decision making, then this is one project that can help us reach women in their own safe spaces," said Karesi Tawake a new community radio broadcaster and board member of the Fiji YWCA.
 
This month's training was made possible with grants from the New Zealand High Commission and UNESCO
 
For more information on femTALK 89.2 FM please contact
femLINKpacific: Media Initiatives for Women
Phone 679 3316290 / Mobile 9244871