SIGNIS ALC launches radio training program

The Latin American and Caribbean Catholic Association for Communication, SIGNIS ALC, launched a radio education and training program for members of 11 national SIGNIS associates in Latin America and the Caribbean. The process began with a virtual meeting of the Consultative Council, made up of the main directors and representatives of the organizations of Catholic communicators in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, countries that will participate in the program.

The presentation of the project took place on the morning of Saturday February 20 and was in charge of the president of SIGNIS ALC and person in charge of the project, Carlos Ferraro (Argentina); the general director, Alessandro Gomes (Brazil) and the executive secretary of SIGNIS ALC, Sonia Navas (Ecuador), who explained the details of the training program that will officially start the first week of April, with the first training module.

The training program includes 8 modules (one per month) in which theoretical presentations, analysis of the communicational and social reality of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as technical training for the production of radio programs will be shared.

Beneficiaries

The training program is aimed at young communicators from the 11 SIGNIS associates in Latin America and the Caribbean, who signed the commitment to participate in this project of integration and training in radio production and the creation of an online radio station. The quota of participants offered by the training program for each associate is a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 students and the selection considers the necessary gender equity.

Community and citizen web radio

The training project includes the launch of a community and citizen web radio, the programming of which will be fed with the productions made by the participants in this radio training cycle.

As explained, in the communicational political proposal of the web radio creation project and the horizon that is expected to be achieved, it is considered that the virtual station's mission aims to become a “radio that promotes a process of citizen and community communication, the democratization of society, interculturality, based on the common good and social justice ”.

Likewise, this brand new online station aims to be a "citizen and community radio that announces, denounces and contributes to achieving the common good, social transformation and regional integration."

As values, the radio project undertakes to guide its work "by the values of the social doctrine of the church, solidarity, justice and freedom", with a marked commitment to integral ecology, the right to information and communication, respect for cultural and religious diversity; his contribution to citizenship education and respect for the rights of women and children.

The aggiornamento of popular communication from radio

As Carlos Ferraro highlighted, “SIGNIS Latin America and the Caribbean wants to have in its radio, in its communicational expression, an identity that is aggiorizing the history of popular communication, of popular radios that have a long history and great impact on society Latin American and that were a faithful reflection of the social doctrine of the Church ”.

He explained that nowadays popular radio stations are community radio stations, since they evolved to a clearer identity, because they respond to a community that has its own problems and desires and to which we must listen.

consultive advice

In the first meeting of the Advisory Council of the SIGNIS ALC radio project, the following participated:

Isabel Gatti, president of SIGNIS Argentina; Alessandro Gómes, president of SIGNIS Brasil, and Franklin Sergio Dos Santos Machado, delegate of the radio commission; Daysi Velásquez, delegate of SIGNIS Colombia; Jorge Nodal, delegate of SIGNIS Cuba; Alex Dávila, president of SIGNIS Ecuador; Ricardo Cruz, president of SIGNIS México, and Francisco Campuzano, radio coordinator; Orlando Sánchez, delegate of SIGNIS Panama; Omar Bogado, president of SIGNIS Paraguay; Javier Portocarrero and Mónica Villanueva, president and vice president of SIGNIS Peru; Nicanor Leyba, delegate of the Dominican Republic and Fr. Néstor Briceño, president of SIGNIS Venezuela.