20 Oct 2023 Indigenous radio in Nicaragua strengthens advocacy with hands-on training

A WACC-supported initiative in Nicaragua is building the capacity of Indigenous community radio as a tool for rights advocacy, social justice, sustainable development, and cultural flourishing.

WACC is partnering with CASEMIP RL (Cooperativa Agropecuaria de Servicios Multiples “Indian Pawanka” RL) to offer training in media production and communication technologies for Indigenous reporters in Yapti Tasba Bila Baikra, its community radio network along Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean coast.

Indigenous radio informs about collective rights

Indigenous peoples and Afro-Nicaraguans living along Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast have their own forms of social organization, worldview, culture, and languages, distinct from those found in the Pacific region, and thus need to be able to access information in their own languages, notes Hans Uriel Busbi Emilio, CASEMIP RL chairperson.

Radio Yapti Tasba’s reach covers 17 Indigenous territories. But up until now, its broadcasters have lacked crucial knowledge and skills to develop programming that would boost freedom of expression, preserve language, and otherwise strengthen the more than 130 Indigenous communities in the area.

Indigenous communities need quality programming focused on their individual and collective rights, with a fluid information flow to and from the communal bases, stresses the CASEMIP RL chairperson.

Equipped to defend land and territories

With support from WACC and Cultural Survival, the project is training 16 Miskitus reporters, including five women and three young people.

As well as becoming well-versed in radio production, the community broadcasters are learning to bring a gender lens to content production and to use inclusive and non-sexist language.

“The training is being very well received because it focuses on various communication techniques that we can use to improve interaction with the community, in order to communicate about the various environmental and social issues we face,” reports Isabel Ludrick, director of Radio Yapti Tasba.

“Ultimately, the expectation is that communities will be better resourced and linked in their efforts to defend their right to land and territories,” says Lorenzo Vargas, WACC’s Communication for Social Change program manager.

Participants in an Indigenous radio production workshop run by WACC partner CASEMIP RL in Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean region.
Photo: CASEMIP RL

 WACC works in partnership with CASEMIP RL and other communication rights and sustainable development organizations worldwide through its Communication for All Program (CAP), with support from Bread for the World-Germany.