Thursday, October 04, 2007

Where others fear to tread.....


Great to meet Mark Eylers again after many years. If you need a radio station built - plus a new management team in place, then Mark just gets on with it. He's one of a handful of people who have built community radio (and TV) stations in difficult places - like Congo, Kenya, Liberia, and Burundi. Based in Soest, to the South East of Amsterdam, Mark is brimming with practical experience about what is right (and sometimes wrong) with community media projects. Its clear that many NGO's underestimate the time needed for a radio station to make an impact. It is more than just dumping equipment and hoping a local engineer will figure it out. Unless the management is in place, and trained, the station is off the air as soon as the foreigners leave. Mark runs a company called Bestworx, still going strong after more than 10 years of travelling across Africa.

No comments:

ShareThis