Voice of Lao Community Radio to Be Heard at MMF

CHIANG MAI -  Community radio’s growth over the years in many Asian countries has had a profound impact on the lives of many communities - and that includes Lao PDR. For many, the medium is a platform for people to voice out their views about issues that affect them. After all, people living in isolated communities in countries in the Mekong Region lack readily available and informative materials, a situation made more challenging by low literacy rates and the variety of different languages within nation-states.

The current situation of community radio and its potential for being ‘radio for the people, by the people’ in Lao PDR will be the highlight of a satellite session to be held Dec. 10, 2009 at the Mekong Media Forum, Chiang Mai, Thailand. The session, with the theme ‘Empowering Local People Through Community Radio’, is being hosted by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Laos, tooether with the Ministry of Information and Culture of Laos and Xiengkhouang Province Department of Information and Culture.

It will be held from 11 a.m. to 12:30 on this day at the Holiday Inn Chiang Mai.

In 2007, the UNDP, with the support of Laos’ information and culture ministry and the Xiengkhouang Province Department of Information and Culture, put up the Khoun Community Radio Development (KCRD) in Khoun district in the north-eastern province of Xiengkhouang. The project’s aim is to improve the people’s access to information through local reporting and radio programmes in local languages. It also aims to increase residents’ participation in development-related decisions that directly affect their lives, by involving them in the radio production process.

Members of the KCRD team expects to share their experiences and their views with the Mekong Media Forum delegates on all aspects of community radio in Lao PDR.  The session will begin with a presentation on Khoun community radio – its lessons and successes, principles and plans for the future.  The session will also include a question and answer session and an opportunity to talk about what community radio can mean for the ethnically diverse Mekong countries.

For more information, write to secretariat@mekongmediaforum.net.