Radio Margarida
Radio Margarita does popular education for children and youth through the mass media. Its products are extremely professional, and it has had a real impact on social consciousness in Belém.
The project began with the philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, who hypothesized that the powerful held onto their hegemony through their control of “cultural production,” ideology that people believe because it is the only thing they ever hear. Radio Margarita gets inside the mass media to offer another option and to subvert the dominant ideology.
Radio Margarida’s work is based on campaigns, but it is tied together by humor and sophistication. For example, Radio Margarida produced a “Radio Play” series for many years, where each week the characters would address an important social issue: street children, ecology, STDs, teen pregnancy... One might think that these plays would be pedantic, but the opposite was true -- by using drama and humor, they conveyed an important message without preaching.
Radio staff is a combination of professional journalists and young people from poor favelas -- some of whom lived on the street at one time. The Radio provides youth with a place to act on behalf of their peers, but it also provides professional education in journalism. The program spokeswoman, who has the posture and presentation of the best TV reporter, was trained in the program.
Radio Margarida also produces public interest TV commercials. By using digital video, they have been able to achieve a quality as professional as any TV studio. Other video projects include a recently produced trilogy about child labor; it hopes to educate the public and to train NGO and government workers. In the future, Radio Margarida plans videos about violence and educational reforms, because these are the most important subjects for children in Belém’s favelas.
The program also teaches on the street, though in a different way than classical street education. Two “Radio-Buses” circulate through the city, playing good music and consciousness raising messages on huge loudspeakers. The buses are driven by clowns, who often stop to give longer lessons.
During the last several years, the Radio’s most successful projects have been around environmentalism: each weekend, the radio-buses travel to local beaches where they play songs about keeping the beach clean. In this way, the program is able to reach 30,000 people in a day. Other recent ecology programs include one on recycling, which taught children how to separate garbage.
Because its income comes on a campaign by campaign basis, Radio Margarida has not been able to create an integrated proposal. In the future, it hopes to gain more stable funding in order to to more integrated work.
Rádio Margarida
Avenida Magalhães Barata 92-1793
Belém, PA 83340 638
Brasil
91 21 1289 o 9986 3034
fax 91 259 5177
www.radiomargarida.org.br
Contacto: Osmar Pancerra: radiomargarida@radiomargarida.org.br
o radiomar@expert.com.br
