BCMD brings together community radios in Bangladesh to brainstorm on reaching larger audiences

They report on the lives and livelihood of the people from faraway places of Bangladesh. Some broadcast contents from the northernmost tip of the Bengal delta, Kurhigram, while others from the southern edge of Cox's Bazar's Teknaf; some others report on the Sundarbans islanders -- they are the community radios.

Representatives of 17 such radios joined together on Tuesday at a workshop organised by bdnews24.com Centre for Media Development (BCMD), the internet newspaper’s media development arm, with Germany's Deutsche Welle Akademie and Bangladesh Community Radio Association (BCRA).

Station masters and reporters of the community radios gathered at bdnews24.com offices to brainstorm at the workshop styled 'Let the voices be heard: Community Radio content for a larger audience' – held as part of its CSR activities.

"We usually are in touch with each other; but a get-together like this is rare," said Shah Sultan Shamim, the station master of 'Sagargiri' radio from Chittagong's Sitakunda.

A BCMD spokesperson said the initiative aims to find ways to render stories by community radios on a national scale.

Deutsche Welle Akademie Trainer Attila Mong said their ongoing project in Bangladesh has a myriad of activities and one of them is supporting community radios to help them improve contents.

"One of the goals of the project is to find ways for community radio content reaching Bangladeshi national news media, creating collaboration between community radio and national media," he said and thanked BCMD to make it happen.

Sagargiri Station Master Shamim said they produce contents on several issues such as health, education, human rights as well as entertainment.

"We want our contents to reach audiences across Bangladesh.

"We will be greatly benefitted as Bangladesh's popular online newspaper bdnews24.com has come forward to do it," he said.

Shariful Islam, a correspondent for radio 'Padma' from the northern region of Rajshahi, echoed him. "In many cases, our contents may interest the national audience."

Mainul Islam Khan, an associate of trainer Atilla, said bdnews24.com can play an important role to run stories coming from different communities Bangladesh-wide.

The nine-day workshop, which kicked off Sunday, aims to find ways to just do that, said Khan. "We are focusing on the sharing of ideas and contents."

Ruma Parvin, one of the coordinators for the BCRA, said 17 community radios are on air in Bangladesh now while another 15 are running test transmissions.

Community radio stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest.

They broadcast content that is popular and relevant to a local, specific audience but is often overlooked by commercial or mass-media broadcasters.

"Through this workshop, we want to create diverse contents as well as to reach them to the national audience," said Parvin.

DW Trainer Atilla said contents produced by community radios vary from country to country.

"There can be ways for community radios to reach their content to the mainstream media. Nepal is a very good example of community radio in sharing contents."

A BCMD official said their organisation's first venture is this workshop for community radios.

"In the coming days, we will go for more detailed and specialised workshops as well as discussions."