Nepal

Capacity Building

Radio for Peacebuilding

SFCG successfully completed the
implementation of the 14-month Radio for Peacebuilding project with funding from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in August 2010. Amid country challenges, the project strengthened the skills of the media sector and provided training to both adult professionals and upcoming child journalists to use radio for peacebuilding. The project was implemented in partnership with Antenna Foundation Nepal, the Far Western Media Development Center (FMDC) and 3 local FM stations.

SFCG produced and broadcast two radio programs: Farakilo Dharti (Wider Earth), a locally made talk-show, broadcasted 84 episodes and covered conflict issues in the stations' districts, including issues affecting marginalised communities; and the national program Sunau Bolau (Lets Listen, Lets Talk), produced by children directly using common ground tools, had 26 episodes broadcast on 30 stations all over the country, creating a sense of ownership of the peace process amongst young listeners.

As a resource for those stations that wish to continue with their own children's radio program, SFCG produced two videos about Sunau Bolau. Additionally, SFCG developed and published a book consisting of radio programming success stories (in Nepali). 500 copies of the book have been produced and will be distributed to FM stations and other media organizations. To strengthen the journalistic skills of those involved, trainings on common ground approaches to media production were lead for 33 FM producers and talk-show hosts as well as for 19 upcoming child/youth journalists. Participants were trained on tools to develop radio content, especially talk-shows, with peacebuilding objectives and a few were selected as producers for Farakilo Dharti or to work on the Sunau Bolau program (for adults and youth respectively). The trainings also initiated the process of forming a network of Radio for Peacebuilding alumni.

The Peace Initiative: Connecting Leaders To Support The Peace Process

SFCG will soon implement, with funding from the Danish Embassy, a new project with the goal of supporting an inclusive peace process from the local to the national level and bringing together stakeholders. To build the capacity of stakeholders, a comprehensive 5-day Radio for Peacebuilding (R4PB) training and a Leadership and Consensus Building Initiative will provide training on leadership and peacebuilding skills. Using a combination of media and community outreach, SFCG will foster solution-oriented dialogue on key elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and peace process through local level radio dialogues, a national communications campaign and consensus building dialogues with leaders at the regional and national level. SFCG and its partners will work with youth and local decision makers in 16 districts in the East, Mid West and Far West of Nepal to foster their constructive engagement in the peace process at the local level and link them with local decision makers and officials, building intergenerational links and supporting youth to be peacebuilders.

Development of Radio for Peacebuilding materials

The radio can play a positive role in promoting peace, reducing violence and bhands, and fostering cooperation between groups. In many countries however, it is used for the opposite purpose, to promote violence. SFCG is working to build the commitment and capacity of the Nepali radio profession to be supportive of the peace process and not to promote violence.

SFCG has translated guides on Radio for peacebuilding into Nepali and Maithili languages. These guides were originally developed in English in the context of SFCG's Radio for Peacebuilding Africa project, completed in 2006. These guides have been disseminated free of charge to various FM stations, schools of journalism, NGOs working with media, youth and peacebuilding organisations, and other relevant stakeholders. Besides translating the Radio for Peacebuilding guidebooks, SFCG also published a book of success stories of Nepali radio programmes.These stories consist of the positive impacts created by its franchise talk-show Farakilo Dharti and the successes of other radio programmes and FM stations also working on peacebuilding. SFCG and consultant radio veteran, Mohan Mainali, worked together to select the stories, coordinate with the writers, edit the pieces, and publish the book. More than 12 success stories have been included in the book, and these cover the impacts created by radio programmes on various social conflict issues at the local level. The stories come from more than 12 districts across Nepal, and represent its' geographical, political and ethnic diversity.

Training and coaching of radio professionals

During 2009-2010, SFCG trained a total of 64 radio producers in two regional Radio for Peacebuilding trainings. Radio for Peacebuilding is a successful capacity building initiative that SFCG started in 2007. Every year it trains a number of radio producers through an extensive 3 part training process. It trains the producers in skills on how to develop radio content, especially talk-shows, with peacebuilding objectives, how to reduce violence , resolve conflicts on the air, and promote solution oriented dialogue between conflicting groups.

The training curriculum focused on applying 'Common Ground' approaches to radio programming. Specifically, it dealt with the preparation of radio talk-shows with a peacebuilding objective. It covered conflict, the elements of conflict such as issues, positions, interests, facts and values, and the theory of Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviour (KAB). It also covered the technical aspects of radio production, including writing for radio and print pieces. Most of the trainings that are regularly available to these radio journalists focus on the technical aspects of radio production, such as interview techniques, and recording and editing skills. Therefore, the participants of the Radio for Peacebuilding trainings appreciated the tools they learned on conflict analysis, and on specific ways to design and approach radio programmes so as to deal with these conflict issues in non-adversarial ways. The uniqueness of the training also resulted in very useful positive feedback from participants.

As a follow up to the training, SFCG Media Coaches visited the participants in their respective radio stations for 2-day coaching sessions. The objectives of these coaching visits were to refresh the producers' knowledge on the tools they learnt from the initial training, to guide them through the process of utilising those tools in developing radio prgrammes, and to coach them in order to help them produce radio programmes with peace building objectives. During each of these visits, the coaches held meetings with radio station managers and briefed them about the purposes of the trainings and the coaching, and discussed the ways in which they could help the radio producers and presenters apply the tools from the trainings in their radio productions. The coaches spent two days at each station working with the two participants reviewing the various subjects they covered in the training, discussing the problems they face in everyday work both at the radio stations and in production of the shows, and guiding them on devising possible ways forward. The coaches thereafter conducted critical listening sessions to give them feedback on their present programs, and also assisted in designing new radio shows.

Capacity building of Local Governance

SFCG designed and delivered various trainings to build the capacity of the key actors in local governance in conflict resolution and consensus building. This included training for VDC officials on how to engage youth in decision making at the VDC level, and also how to resolve local level conflicts that arise in the course of daily government business.