Ensuring Quality through Continuous Improvement of Community Radio Stations
Ensuring Quality through Continuous Improvement of Community Radio Stations
New Delhi, 08/05/2013: An expert peer-group workshop to validate parameters of continuous improvement toolkit for Community Radio (CR) was held on April 25-26 at University of Hyderabad, organized by the UNESCO Chair on Community Media and duly supported by CEMCA. Besides representatives from four CR stations namely MUST Radio (Mumbai University); Gurgaon ki Awaaz ; Radio Deccan , Hyderabad and Saiyare jo Radio, Kutch; the expert group included representatives of Community Media institutions like Maraa and Ideosync; AMARC and PANOS . Audience Dialogue, Adelaide, Australia and Bangladesh NGO’s Network for Radio Communication brought international perspectives to the discussions. The main task of the validation workshop was to review, discuss in detail and refine the basic parameters and performance indicators identified by a group of ten CR practitioners at an earlier workshop held in March 2013. The deliberations led to a broad consensus about the non-negotiable principles such as participation, community ownership and management, gender equity, and representation of the marginalized groups, and also identified actionable indicators to ensure these to place these on an improvement continuum. The UNESCO Chair on Community Media team lead by Professor Vinod Pavarala will prepare the toolkit that will be published in June 2013 and disseminated widely. In the next phase select CR stations in India and Bangladesh will adopt the CR-CIT to provide scope for further refinement.
