Other Projects
CR-YPIM (Community Radio facilitating Youth Participation towards Curbing Irregular Migration)
CR-YPIM (Community Radio facilitating Youth Participation towards Curbing Irregular Migration) is currently being developed and implemented by GCRN as a component of UNESCO’s project “Empowering Young People in Africa through Media and Communication”.
CR-YPIM adopts the IOM/UNESCO definition of Irregular Migration; that is,
Irregular migration – is generally, the movement of persons that takes place outside the laws, regulations, or international agreements governing the entry into or exit from one’s country of origin, transit or destination. (IOM – International Organization for Migration).
The particular focus of this UNESCO Migration project is on Irregular Migration from Africa to Europe.
For this first phase, CR-YPIM is being implemented by eight GCRN-member Community Radio stations. Three – Radio Ada and Radio LaTeNu in the Greater Accra Region and Radio Royals in the Bono Region are in areas identified by the International Office of Migration (IOM) as having the greatest number of irregular migrants to Europe. The other five are located in four border towns and one capital city in four other Regions – Radio Peace and Coastal TV in the Central Region, Radio Nabiina in the Upper East Region, Radio RADFORD in the Upper West Region and Radio Ahanta in the Western Region.
AAPG (VIAMO)
The Advancing Anti-Corruption Practices in Ghana (AAPG) project is an ongoing collaborative effort between VIAMO Technologies and Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN), funded by STAR-Ghana. Together, we are using an innovative combination of mobile phone technology and Community Radio to 1. educate Ghanaians on the dangers of corruption while promoting the benefits of accountability and transparency and secondly to provide a hotline for citizens to channel issues of corruption and 2. share their feedback for the appropriate authorities to address.
AAPG is being implemented by five member stations, namely Radio LaTeNu in the Greater Accra Region, Radio PAD in the Savannah Region, Radio Simli and Radio Tawasul in the Northern Region.
DWA – Community Radio Human Rights Handbook
In mid-2018, the Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN) and Deutsche Welle Akademie together decided to develop and publish a Community Radio Handbook on Human Rights. It is a project of fundamental import with a vision of accelerated betterment for the communities served by the two organizations and beyond. The Community Radio Handbook on Human Rights seeks to deepen the gains made by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the latter of which laid the ground for an unbroken series of seven national elections to date and introduced a climate for the rule of law.
Why Community Radio?
Community Radio, as GCRN puts it, is “a different kind of radio”.
Community Radio is inherently about Human Rights – the democratic Right to Communicate of All. Beyond Freedom of Expression or the Right to Information, the Right to Communicate can be paraphrased as “the right to express one’s self and in addition, not only to be heard but also to have one’s socio-cultural and lived experience taken into account in discourse, decision-making and development at all levels.”[ Paraphrased from the writings of Professor Cees Hamelink, communication scholar, then based at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands.
Structurally Community Radio embodies the Right to Communicate by consciously dedicating its portion of the airwaves and availing broadcast technology to those least able to communicate. Operationally, through the participatory approach practised by GCRN, it enables broadcast technology interlaced with continuing community engagement to give voice to those least voiced and facilitate the development of more equitable communities.
Thus, Community Radio is a singular vehicle for pursuing the goal of realizing Human Rights for all, especially those who tend to be left behind.
GCRN has previously collaborated with Deutsche Welle on a number of projects on election capacity-building, strategic planning and news exchange.