“Thundering has damaged many of our equipment including console. The broadcasting of the station has been suspended. There was no technician available in Hatiya Island to repair and resume the broadcasting. On another day short-circuit affected the tower that also disrupted the program broadcasting”
Mr. Golam Kibria, a Radio Technician from Community Radio Sagardwip was telling his experience of technical troubles that he has been facing in station operation in a daylong workshop held for Community Radio Technicians on 03 January, 2017 at Coast Trust Meeting Room of Shyamoli, Dhaka.
The main objectives of this workshop were to identify the challenges of the radio technicians and the ways they have mitigated their problems. It was also aimed to plan their future needs and demands to update their radio stations both in program production as well as to maintain their station equipment.
A total of 20 Community Radio Technicians from 17 CRSs participated in the workshop. The program was organized by Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) under its “Strengthening BNNRC in Capacity Building, Lobby Advocacy to Contribute to Community Media Development” project which was supported by Free Press Unlimited”(FPU).
Beside the participants, the workshop was attended by the representatives of BNNRC. Briefing about the objectives to organize this event AHM Bazlur Rahman- S21BR, Chief Executive Officer, BNNRC highlighted the imperative roles of CR Technicians. For gender balance, he advised all to promote more female radio technicians in their planning to strengthen the CRSs.
For promoting ICT4D, he declared, BNNRC would organize this kind of training-workshop every after two to three month. In this regard, for advance level capacity building matters, expert would be hired from the country or abroad, he committed.
The major discussion points of this workshop were on challenges of CRSs in technical concerns, ways the technicians have managed their trouble shootings, their existence barriers to ensure smooth program broadcasting and overall operation of CRSs, needs or demands to overcome their future challenges. For mitigating all barriers, the participants presented their strategic ideas for strengthening the CRSs through three group presentations.
“It is absolutely a unique initiative to organize such kind of planning workshop where we have an opportunity to meet all CR Technicians. We could learn various ways to solve our challenges and the way forward”, said Sanjoy Chowdhury, Technical Producer, Community Radio Sagar Giri, Sitakunda, Chittagong.
“I feel very inspired to join this workshop, as I came to know that like me, the other Radio Technicians are also facing a lot of challenges and find their own ways to overcome their barriers. It was a good initiative to form a network of CR Technicians, create a Facebook page and share to each other’s innovation, trouble shooting and the way forwards. It’ll help us a lot by sharing experience in that way”, expressed Maria Jannat Laboni, Technical Officer, Community Radio Meghna, Charfasion, Bhola.
During presentation from 03 groups by 03 group leaders, the participants gave a lot of suggestions and recommendations which were decided to be placed in agendas of the next possible meetings or workshops. Majority of the participants suggested for organizing this type of event on regular basis, so that they will share their technical experiences to contribute more in ensuring smooth operation of CRSs as well as broadcasting of radio programs.