The radio reached the community

What manual do we use to do radio from and for the communities? What communication paradigm is there to be used? Is there an ideal technology to create a perfect radio product?

The Vuelta Abajo radio station demonstrated that radio, when close to the people, must be created from among the people.

In other words, to do radio by recording the voices while sharing the same soil; while drinking the same water or observing the landscapes that fingers point out in the distance; while looking into the glazed eyes of who tells about his/her life and feeling as an accomplice in stories that seem to be our own.

It is only in this way that true radio-makers are capable of moving their audience to other moments, places and reach other people; of  transforming, sensitizing and supporting, and thereby are capable of multiplying dreams.

It was in La Quimbería, Los Pelayos and El Rodeo where the magic took place.

Radio lovers arrived to find out about the still open or semi-healed wounds left by Hurricane Ian in these parts, the most affected in the San Luis municipality and to talk about responsible parenthood and respectful parenting, popular participation and resilience.

They went there because they knew that only in-situ, with the radio put at the service of the community, they would be able to weave the stories they wanted to tell.

At their return they carried with them collective sorrows, shared joys, and crude and bitter testimonies that were also as colorful as life is.

They returned to Pinar del Río full of ideas to transform the recordings into souls and show them to the world.

By Glendy Hernandez Arozarena. Translation: Gilda Gil