Women on the Airwaves

Fernanda Maria has worked for 12 years in Radio Liberdade, a community radio in Dili, the capital of Timer Leste. Radio Liberdade works with the 'Fundacão Media Development Centre' working to support women's voices in the media and the voices of other underrepresented groups. Radio Liberdade is one of some 15 community radio stations, struggling for survival, as Fernanda tells us - but she and her...

Palmira Velasco is a senior journalist, who has been at the forefront of democratic journalism in Mozambique, where she in 1987 started as a reporter at the big, state-run daily newspaper Notícias. With the peace accord signed in 1992, after an 18 year war, intercepted by a few free years of socialism, Palmira in 1994 joined a group of journalists that started DEMOS, the first independent weekly....

Jimena Lopez, broadcaster and assembly member of the community radio La Tribu FM, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jimena Lopez has been a part of the station for nearly ten years, where she has had many different roles. Right now she is a part of the station’s communication team, responsible for Social media and other communication activities. She is also in the Station’s assembly made up by 20 core peop...

Catherine Vhutuza is a broadcaster in the Ndau-speaking Vemuganga community radio in Chipinge. Catherine focused on strengthening the voice and rights of women including in areas of land rights and violence against women. Vemuganga Community Radio Vemuganga Community Radio (VCR) is a registered Trust established to heighten the creation of a reliable and direct platform for the people of Zimbabwe...

I met Kadi Souley Bonkano in Niger’s capital city Niamey first time in 2007, when she was a broadcaster in the local community radio, Radio Anfani and again in 2013 in the office of APAC, Association des professionnelles africaines de la communication, the Media Women’s Association there, where I was preparing a new project for the Danish Embassy, including women and media issues. Kadi was prepari...

Hi, we’re back: Women on the global community airwaves! Today's episode brings us to Southern Africa, to Zambia’s capital Lusaka, where I talk with Jubiel Zulu, an award-winning journalist and media and communication specialist. Now working as a District Information Officer in Zambia's Eastern Province. When we spoke, Jubiel was still in Kwithu FM, in the capital Lusaka, where she has worked for t...

Kachan K. Malik (PhD) is a university professor at the University of Hyderabad and is a Faculty Fellow with the ‘UNESCO Chair on Community Media’, there, where she unfolds her work in support of community media in India and in South Asia. Kanchan presents herself as a researcher, learning from the powerful people building community media where her journeys take her. Kanchan has been with the Depar...

Olena Zinenko from Kharkiv in Ukraine, takes us in this episode through the recent media history of Ukraine, where communication - and culture - has gotten a whole new importance in the present war situation, where also new voices are heard in new ways. As she says: the state media, the commercial and oligarch media create media products – she and her colleagues focus in their media production on...

Professor (PhD) of radio, researcher, networker and beyond and above all a feminist activist, Caroline Mitchell has since she joined 'Women's Airwaves' worked to turn her professional and social engagement real, through strengthening women and women's voices with a focus to ensure space, justice and empowerment for and of women. Fem FM - an 8-day radio licence in 1992 - co-created by Caroline, pla...

Saritha Thomas || Managing Trustee, PPC India | Director, PPC UK PPC's founder and driving force, Saritha has nurtured a lifelong love for radio. In this episode Saritha takes us through her own voyage into and with community radio as a people's communication and development platform, and we learn about the community radio station Mandakini Ki Awaz in Bhaduj village in Uttarakhand state in the far...

“Women on the air - Women in (Community) Radio in Europe” *** This podcast is a recording of my cassette bringing you the sounds and the atmosphere of what women’s community radio in 1983 in Europe was. The directory and the travel before that are the earliest known attempt to systematically document women’s engagement in (community) radio in (Western) Europe in the early 80s (1983). You can dive...

Women on the Global Airwaves is a podcast series bringing you stories from around the world. The stories are brought to you by me, Birgitte Jallo v, who has worked in this area for a lifetime from within my initiative: EMPOWERHOUSE. In many realities women’s voices are among those least heard and women are often not being respected with equal access to their human rights. Women in community radio...

Rose-Haji Mwalimu, a women’s rights and press freedom activist, a community radio advocate, trainer and supporter and a voice for women’s equal access to the airwaves has been active in these fields for a lifetime. Known, recognized and loved in every one of the 35 community radio stations in Tanzania, she has trained and mentored, she is simply known as ‘Mama Rose’ – a name she is proud of, and w...

Gwen is the station manager of the Radyo Sagada. The station has been on air since 2011 and Gwen has been on of the radio team since then. Conceptualized in 2003, it only went on air in an experimental mode in 2010 and for real in 2011. It is the Philippines’ only indigenous peoples’ radio located in the mountain province, the Condillera, in the north of the main Luzon island. The station came int...

Karolina Rogóz-Namiotko is the creator, creator and presenter of "Lejdi Gada - women at the microphone". It is a program broadcast on student radio UWM FM in Olsztyn (Poland) about women who fulfill themselves in life through passion and work. The guests of Karolina Rogóz-Namiotko are female soldiers, psychologists, priests, cooks, dressmakers, entrepreneurs, presidents, mothers, etc. The host of...

Siphathisiwe has worked with Ntepe-Manama Community Radio based in Gwanda, Matabeleland South , Zimbabwe for 10 years. Since 2013 the community has been organising, training and advocating for access to get licenses. The station finally got its licence and sending permission in 2022 as one of the first community radios to go on air in Zimbabwe. During the almost 10 year period prior to this, the c...

Sharon has for the past more than 20 years has worked to empower women – young women, rural women, women living with disabilities and women in the LGBTQI circles - through engaging them in the media and getting an empowered and insightful voice. In this process and through the organisation she founded, FemLINKpacific, she has helped found and form robust and sustainable women’s community media pla...

Radio Violeta went on air in 2019 as a feminist community radio station in Mexico City. The station has xx women involved and broadcast 24/7. The station has around 150.000 listeners and receive regular feed-back from women listeners stressing the importance to have the station, which covers issues of special importance to women, which is covered no-where else. Radio Violeta consciously challenges...