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A Centre for Community Media in Asia
Palpa is the site of some of the most innovate and remarkable community
media efforts in Nepal and South Asia. In the 1960s, a self-trained engineer
test broadcast an AM transmitter that he made in his radio repair shop.
In the early 1990s, a second AM test transmission was the first non-government
radio transmission in post-democracy Nepal.
In the 1990s, a Tansen based NGO started a rural newspaper, a family cable
business started airing a local TV programme and in 2000, the first independent
community radio in the sub-region went on air run by a local village development
committee.
Community Radio Madanpokhara (CRM) began broadcasting
in April 2000. It is the first community radio station to be based in
a village area in Nepal. The license is held by the Madanpokhara village
development committee (VDC) with management overseen by a management group
and a station manager. Six hours of daily programming is produced and
broadcast by a group of 14 volunteers from the local area to a potential
listenership of some 400 000. The focus is on local news and culture,
raising awareness and consciousness about local development. The station
is located in a village area in Palpa in the country's middle hills region.
Communication for Development Palpa (CDP)
was the first independent Nepali language TV producer in the country.
In 1992, CDP began production of a weekly TV programme focused on local
news and culture, distributed through a private cable network of some
800 household subscribers in Tansen, a small municipal area in Palpa District
in the middle hills region of Nepal (the same valley as CRM). Tansen's
Local Programme is produced by a small group of volunteers. In June 2001,
CDP launched Palpa's first local web site - www.tansenpalpa.net - which
is committed to local development and content. CDP is planning to establish
a TV web browsing programme and a local internet centre for public access.CDP
is recently working in partnership with UNESCO on its major programme
on Cross Cutting Theme project "Eradication of poverty, Especially
Extreme poverty", "Empowering the underprivileged through the
use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)". The local
project is entitled as "Tansen local ICTs Network" project.
The main objective of the project is to put ICTs into the hands of poor
for poverty reduction.
To fulfill the purpose of project CDP has established a centre named "Community
Media Centre" (CMC) for local community to use ICTs for poverty
reduction. The centre is helping the poor local youth to build confidence,
develop skills and overall capacity.
Rural Development Palpa and Gaule
Deurali are unique examples of local development communications
in Asia. Deurali is a community-based weekly newspaper aimed at the grassroots
level through a combination of 'barefoot journalism' and community participation.
To date, RDP has conducted news gathering training for over 600 local
women, men and youth in Palpa and other districts.
Palpa Photo Gallery
The Palpa Photo Gallery's first feature is on
historic Tansen with photographs dating back to the 1930s and revealing
something from the past that is still recognisable in the present.
In future, the Gallery will also be a venue for local photographers and
their work. Contributions are welcome: cdp@tansenpalpa.net
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