PCI-Media Impact partner stays on the air despite violence in Oaxaca, Mexico

October 4, 2006 - News reports from Mexico indicate continuing unrest and violence stemming from labor disputes in the state of Oaxaca. Triggered by a teachers strike, the protests have escalated in recent weeks and now involve tens of thousands of students, political groups and social organizations demonstrating against the Oaxaca state government. Protesters have taken over or shut down government offices and occupied streets, tourists have been trapped in hotels. At least two people have been killed in the spreading violence. Among the institutions caught in the upheaval are local radio stations, some of which have also been occupied by protesters.

As the area is home to one of PCI-Media Impact’s most successful “My Community” projects we are bringing you this update on behalf of our partners on the ground in the city of Oaxaca. As PCI-Media Impact donors know, “ My Community” is a series of grassroots empowerment programs that enable community-based organizations to create and sustain integrated communications strategies. At the heart of their work is the PCI-Media Impact model in which local residents write and produce their own radio serial dramas that shed light on the health care and development needs of their towns and villages.

PCI-Media Impact has been communicating with the “My Community” team in Oaxaca and has asked them to be mindful of their safety first and foremost. They have advised us they are doing so.  At the same time, this team of young people continues to display remarkable bearing and dedication to the radio programs they have produced. Their comments below have been translated from Spanish.

18 year old Omar Trujillo is one of the producers on site. Normally immersed in his passion for flute, guitar and clarinet when he’s not producing a weekly radio program, he has been thrust into a situation that too many young people around the world have had to endure. “You can hear guns shooting and other nights just the sound of firecrackers. It’s a fear campaign. Our mothers are nervous about the barricades and the night shootings.”

Hita Perez, also 18 years old, is another producer. As part of the indigenous community, Hita speaks Spanish and Zapoteco. Her radio programs touch on social problems, gender equity and sexually transmitted diseases among other issues. She is now experiencing a new, more immediate crisis: a city under siege, where citizens feel anyone can be targeted by one side or the other. “All over the city there are cars without plates, policemen dressed as civilians and the area is getting militarized. Now when we say goodbye to someone we add the line ‘please be careful’” she says.

In the face of the conflict, Omar & Hita have remained committed to their audience and have used the program to create a safe space for their young listeners. They report that most of their shows remain on the air. The broadcasts, however, depend on the status of each radio station. “We were planning to transmit on 8 community radio stations but two were burned or destroyed so we are only re transmitting on 6,” says Omar.

Although Hita and Omar no longer have access to schools they nevertheless promote the shows by putting up posters and staying in touch with individual kids they can track down. They have found that the “My Community” broadcasts have given listeners a sense of community they don’t seem to have in other parts of their lives right now. “The radio show is having its success,” says Omar. “Every time we transmit in the state of Oaxaca we say “listen to this in your area, and know that someone else is listening elsewhere.”

Community radio has been under growing pressure in other parts of Mexico. Death threats and vandalism have been used against some radio station journalists in Amecameca de Juárez, in the state of Mexico, according to The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, (AMARC).

PCI-Media Impact will continue to keep you posted on developments involving our partners in the “My Community” program and throughout the developing world.

For more information on “My Community” projects in Oaxaca and other Latin American communities please click here. ( www.pci-mediaimpact.org/mycommunity).

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