Community Development Radio Service
Briefing Paper
Aboriginal Resource & Development Services Inc. (ARDS) is establishing a Community Development Radio Service to meet the information access, self-learning and adult education needs of the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land (see map of the coverage area).
What the Service is About
It is said that a nation’s people are its greatest asset. For people who work in government departments, and all those who work in education and training, attempting to unlock the wealth of capacity within a nation’s people is a continual quest. For those of us involved in community development and community education the task is the same: how to unlock the untapped energy, ability, knowledge and creative potential that is locked up both within individuals and within the community in which we work.
The Community Development Radio Service will aid this need by offering education, information and cultural reinforcement for the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land.
Keys to Human Capacity Building
When it comes to human capacity building and creating social capital, there are two essential keys: purpose and communication.
Loss of purpose emerges when people become confused and do not have enough information about the world around them to take control of their own lives and develop their own future. Without good communication, clear purpose is but a faint and distant hope. Without clear purpose, human endeavour stops.
Human capacity building cannot happen without good communication. Good communication happens when information is provided in a way that allows it to be understood. This can only happen in the people’s own language, which is the medium they use to communicate, think and construct knowledge.
Education Through a Media Service
Since ARDS was incorporated in 1974, we have been involved in active community education within Arnhem Land. It has become clear to ARDS personnel that despite this education being very effective on a one-to-one basis or in small groups, it has not expanded across the region from the original groups involved. The lack of reinforcement of new information imparted has also become a major problem. The people have little opportunity to revisit or update the information they first gained. Furthermore, the amount of information that people want and need access to is too enormous to transfer through the face-to-face educational method over an area one-third the size of the state of Victoria.This has led to many hundreds of hours of discussion with clan and community leaders as to how this problem could be overcome. As a result of these discussions, ARDS has started developing “off-site electronic classroom” material and has produced subject-specific video and audio tapes in an attempt to create some accessible media. But to deliver the large amounts of information to the people where they live, what is needed is a dynamic, comprehensive media service across the whole of the north-east Arnhem Land region - in the people’s language.
How Can the Large Amount of Requested Information Be Delivered?
After consultation, research, observation and testing of various media over a number of years, but more intensively in the last twelve months, some clear conclusions have become apparent.
If we look at all the media and telecommunication methods – print media, telephone, the Internet, computer conferencing, television, immanent digital radio and multi-media transfer, video conferencing and AM, FM and HF radio, some interesting points emerge:
· No comprehensive media service exists in the people’s own language for the north-east Arnhem Land region. · Almost all existing services, except the telephone, are not meeting the expected communication needs of the people.
· New information technologies will also fail to deliver due to the extensive timeframe needed to develop comprehensive material in the people’s language.
An Effective Media Service
Radio is the only telecommunications medium available that will deliver large amounts of information and knowledge, time- and cost-effectively, to the people of the region, in their language, in the next five to ten years. It is user-friendly and technically lean. Radios are readily available to the people - cheap to buy and easy to operate. They are also very portable for a mobile community.
Cheapest Content Development
The other major advantage of radio is that it is extremely cost- and time-effective in area of content development. This means material can be created quickly and then put to air immediately. Almost all other media require many hours of scripting, translating, checking and correcting, whereas large amounts of radio content can be done in live-to-air dialoguing, thus employing live talkback and/or discussions between BRACS (Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme) operators and the proposed Nhulunbuy studio. For emergencies and quick updates of information, radio has no real competitors even in today’s IT world – especially in the unique Arnhem Land situation.
The Radio Service
ARDS intends to: