So yes, I’ve taken a job with a non-profit organization called Internews in Sudan doing community radio. My official title is Community Radio Technical Manager. I’m taking care of 4 FM community radio stations in Southern Sudan, and likely building 2 more in the coming year. The Internews office is in Rumbek, which is my base of operations:
My door’s on the right. I’ve got my own office/workshop with air conditioning(!) and for my friends at 890 ESPN Boston, yes it has a window.
There are two expat staff members in Rumbek that I work with: Deb (the program director), and Ellie (the training manager), plus two local staff members: Alfred, our accountant, and Richard, our logisitics coordinator. I also work very closely with Kevin, who is a freelance IT/ Engineering consultant from Kenya. He’s been doing work with Internews for about 2 years and is fantastic because he’s been involved in all the station construction and upgrades and problems, so he knows the ropes and is a really nice guy to boot.
The stations themselves are low power (250 Watt) FM stations located in Kauda, Leer, Malualkon, and Kurmuk. Broadcast range is about 50-75 km. It’s community radio, so what Internews does is hire local people and train them radio journalism and production using laptops. At this point the stations are on the air about 12 hours/day and about 70% of the content is locally produced, while the other 30% are things like long-form radio dramas talking about various issues like HIV awareness.
That’s the basics of it anyway – more soon!
