Ongoing Training Program in Community and Citizen Radio

The voices and faces of Latin America and the Caribbean, diverse, happy, festive and, above all, full of hope, were expressed, heard and seen in the opening ceremony of the Production Training Program for a Community and Citizen Radio . The opening program had the participation of around 150 participants in the virtual room of ZOOM, and hundreds of others who followed the event through social networks.

The Training Program is promoted by the Latin American and Caribbean Catholic Association of Communication, SIGNIS ALC , with the support of ALER and CIESPAL, and aims to train about 100 young communicators from 11 countries on the continent.

In his opening speech, the president of SIGNIS ALC and general coordinator of the training project, Carlos Ferraro, gave an account of the entire process of organizing the program and the support he received from cooperation entities and fraternal organizations, specialized in the field of communication, such as ALER and CIESPAL.

According to him, the program has "sources of inspiration in the past of Latin America, such as Monsignor Leonidas Proaño , from Ecuador, Monsignor Angelelli , from Argentina or Monsignor Romero, San Romero , from El Salvador, who is also the Patron of SIGNIS" , whose voices point out that “this is the path that we have to follow, a path that is linked to the denunciation of inequity, of the injustice that people experience in different contexts; people who have given their lives, people who cannot be put aside and who have to be like a permanently lit light ”.

Previously, the president of the Board of Directors of ALER, the Salvadoran communicator Leonel Herrera, stressed that the program is aimed at training young people, "who are the architects of the present and the future." She also considered important that the group of facilitators come from valuable experiences of citizen and community communication, and that the program combines political and technical training.

Likewise, the General Director of Ciespal, the Ecuadorian communicator Gissela Dávila, congratulated on the training program "because it is based on sharing and valuing what people already have", as proposed by the great promoter of popular communication, the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire. "We know that we all bring diverse experiences and processes of community work and committed by this other communication, which will be the guarantee for a training course to change the proposals."

After the opening ceremony, a panel was shared that analyzed the validity of the radio and the importance of a virtual community and citizen radio.