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Educational radio in Venezuela: Radio IRFA
Reception area in the Caracas office of IRFA
Venezuela is well-known as the birth place of Fe y Alegria, the popular education movement that has become a cornerstone of Jesuit educational activity in Latin America. Less well-known than the schools, but equally impressive is the nation-wide network of Fe y Alegria radio stations. Much of each station's programming is local, but the stations are organized by regions and they follow some common policies and sometimes even share broadcasts.
The IRFA radio studios in Caracas occupy the top floor of one of two buildings given to Fe y Alegria by a benefactor. In all, about 100 people work in three different Fe y Alegria offices in the building. There is the Caracas radio station as well as the national network of radios, the offices of professional development for teachers, and the administrative offices for the Caracas region of Fe y Alegria. Javier Barrios is the coordinator of the national office of the radio; he explained during my April 2005 visit that the government pays all of the salaries, but Fe y Alegria must raise money for the rest of the expenses.
IRFA's studios are very modern and well-developed. They have four studios and are well set-up with digital recording equipment. Much of their programming is done live, but they also record some reports, especially those from the "voceros comunitarios", volunteers in neighborhoods who collect and report on local news. IRFA offers about six hours of education instruction per day, and they also offer some training to other community radio operations. One of their more interesting programs works with young people in the neighborhoods who are developing a local style of rap that is more socially conscious and positively oriented than the ordinary rap music. A song I heard had lyrics that emphasized pride in being Venezuelan, and the necessity to take part in changing their world.
I also visited two other stations in the 11-station network, one in Maracaibo and one in Paraguaipoa near the western border with Colombia. These stations are part of the nation-wide network of stations (10 sponsored by the SJ and one by a diocese). Maracaibo is Venezuela's second city; the province had been reducing its commitment to parishes there, but Fr. Provincial, Jesús María Orbegozo has increased the Jesuit presence, giving it a very good equippe, including Miguel Matus SJ, the former novice master, a young priest and two scholastics. Matus is an accomplished musician who has released several CD's of his songs.
Mr. Gerardo Lombardi is a layman who serves as local and regional director of the Fe y Alegria radio station in Maracaibo, which is located in a new, free-standing building just outside the city center. Lombardi is a graduate of the local Jesuit high school and has worked at the radio for 22 years. He brings very good leadership qualities and a good vision. In both of the radio stations I visitied, he made sure to gather the staff so we could have a good conversation; and he used the meeting as a tool for giving the staff real encouragement about what he sees as most important. He has also been involved in the leadership of the community radio association, ALER, and serves on a committee for CELAM, the Latin American bishops organization.
The Maracaibo operation is well-equipped and blessed with a strong esprit du corps among its professional staff. It has two main audio studios and a large newsroom for reporters. Within the region they have a strategy of developing a network with one big AM station in Maracaibo and five smaller FM stations in the area. Each station can develop the local flavor of the distinct cultures it serves while still contributing to a bigger network. Lombardi pointed out that within the region there is the main city culture of Maracaibo, the indigenous culture of the Wuayu people, the Negro culture in the south and the culture of the petroleum workers on the east side of Lake Maracaibo.
Lombardi stresses professional development and tries to get people to do both personal and professional growth. For awhile they had a two hour training session every Saturday morning. They pay for staff development (including coursework in local universities) by setting aside 10% of all the revenues that come in for advertising. This fund provides the money necessary for training; it is not a loan, although some employees do pay it back. He tries to encourage a dynamic of people with a sense that they can grow and move on up to positions of greater opportunity. Many other stations, by contrast, keep employees at their same level for ever. He also likes to rotate people around to different jobs, so they keep flexible. People can also travel for self improvement and to take part in conferences. Last year they encountered a fiscal crisis; instead of cutting staff, he pushed them to take on more responsibilities; so now the reporters also do technical work and the technicians do reporting. The results seem to verify the initiative: ALER gave this station the highest rating in terms of how it works.
Two people conduct ongoing research into the effectiveness of the programs; they are constantly looking to see how the radio can improve. People seek certain things from the radio and they want to be in sync with those desires.
They have been quite consciously fine-tuning their educational programs and trying to make them less didactic. Lombardi says he wants the programs to unite education and information. They need to attract people and compete for attention in an ambience where many mediums pander to the audience's tastes. So they have been moving away from the more straight-forward classroom type of program to something that works on a mobile basis. He thinks you can educate people while giving them information in a lively way. He keeps his eyes firmly on the audience research and adjusts programs accordingly.
Lombardi is very proud of the wall between the two studios on which hang six awards that IRFA has received. Some come for pro-Chavez politicians and some from anti-Chavez politicians. The point is that both sides find a friend in Fe y Alegria. During the 2002 coup crisis, IRFA provided shelter to people from both sides who needed protection from angry mobs. Lombardi carefully tries to cultivate a neutrality that allows the stations to continue being straightforward and maintaining the credibility that this indepence gives them.
For the future they want to expand to the cities of Barquisimeto and Maracay because of their national prominence. Lombardi also wants to start producing music videos for young musicians as a way of reaching out to youth who would not otherwise come into contact with Fe y Alegria. He already has an empty room in reserve to hold the four computers they would need for editing the videos. He even has funding lined up once he finds the right staff to run the program. The idea is that the videos would be aired over sations that are eager for content. Some Jesuits are nervous about this idea, but Lombardi insists that he is not trying to start a new TV station, just to find a way to reach the kids that fall into the pretty large crack between children in the grade school programs and adults in the alfetization programs.
Radio IRFA in Paraguaipoa was founded in 1998, paid for with funds from the government and maintained until now by the government, even they have never officially been granted permission to go on air since the regulators claim that there are no frequencies available. Of course, the fact that they do go on the air means that the frequencies are indeed available. Lombardi claims that they would not dare to shut the station down.
The station is completely bi-lingual, broadcasting in Spanish and Wuayuanaiki. The Wuayu live on both sides of the Colombia-Venezuela border and move freely back and forth across it. They are a nomadic people and take their herds where they can graze. Most people speak both languages, but the station wants to give pride to people's mother tongue and sense of themselves as persons of value. They have a good amount of indigenous music recorded and cleverly wind back and forth between the two languages.
Once a week some of their programs get aired on the national network. The back-and-forth method allows a wider national audience to hear the indigenous language and still understand what is being said. It also gives Wuayu people who have moved away a chance to hear their language and get news. They are also working with scholars who are trying to develop a system for spelling and writing the language in an effort to preserve the culture. Such scholarship would also make it possible to do a radio-novela since you need to have scripts for that, but up to now Wuayuanaiki has not been a written language.
When they started the station, they ran into some opposition, partly because some area residents presumed that the station was going to try to impose Spanish language and culture on the people. Lombardi was very clearly the station's goal was to give voice to the people in their own language. People like Ranchero music, in part because of the themes of horse riding and that style of life. They translate some of the words into Wuayuanaiki. They also have their own musical instruments such as drums, a mouth harp-like instrument and flutes. Their singing has a nasal, droning quality which reminded me of the laments sung in Appalachian roots music.
My conversation with the five-person staff clearly demonstrates the wisdom of Lombardi's emphasis on formation. They are very good and they know how to use the modern equipment they have. They are able to preset a computer to play certain music all night long, even though few people in an agricultural context are awake at night. Fe y Alegria radio plays all night.