Working With Other Organisations - Developing Partnerships
It is important to establish links with other organisations that are working with new and emerging communities and refugee groups in your broadcast area. It is these organisations who offer practical support to emerging communities which can make the difference between a radio program being successfully establish or it not happening. These organisations may be able to help groups with practical matters such as organising transport to the radio station and childcare. They are also important in finding community members to become broadcasters.
It is often these organisations that help groups develop their first community projects. Refugee groups have for example participated in writing projects, which give them the chance to tell their story. These kinds of projects could easily include a radio component with an audio version being produced. Some support services may even be willing to include radio in their settlement project work, which is funded by DIMIA.
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Short-term Projects
After making contact with a local support service or with a community itself, you may want to present several options to them about how they might start their involvement in community radio. Many radio stations now produce features and documentaries that they distribute nationally. These projects are often funded by state and federal government departments with responsibility for immigration, multicultural affairs, women or youth. These projects could include some initial training as a way of introducing the group to radio.
While some of these are funded projects it is also possible for your station to take on similar projects without special funding or with very limited amounts of funds.
Radio Adelaide (formally 5UV) was successful in getting funding from a local philanthropic organisation to run a special refugee radio project. The station found it a very positive experience that has had ongoing benefits for the station, community and the broadcasters. It is also an experience that made them rethink some of the ways they normally get new broadcasters involved.
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Training
The Australian Ethnic Radio Training Project (AERTP) offers funding for training ethnic language broadcasters. The course is fully accredited and can be offered in flexible packages or as a full course. Many stations have taken advantage of the AERTP course to encourage new groups to their radio stations. Ethno-specific or gender-specific courses have been successful in helping smaller communities form strong broadcasting groups. Other alternatives include having training for members of 3 or 4 emerging communities who are in similar situations in terms of their community's migration and broadcasting experiences.
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Multilingual and other Approaches to Programming
Establishing timeslots that are shared by several smaller groups as a stepping stone to them each having their own program is an approach used by many stations. Some of these timeslots are hosted/co-ordinated by a local resource centre or the station itself. This allows the groups to offer mutual support and skill-sharing. Other approaches include scheduling smaller groups from the same region ie Pacific Islanders, Africans in timeslots which follow one another. This strengthens their ability to attract an audience and allows for joint promotion and sponsorship opportunities. It also gives these new and smaller groups of broadcasters a greater sense of ownership of the radio station.
We started with an African program in English because there were not enough people here from individual countries to sustain their own programs. After a while, as communities grew it was just natural that people would want to start programs in their own languages and we now have four African programs on the station.
Paul Thusi, Manager, Radio Skid Row, Sydney
