4 hinterland radio stations to be commissioned soon

The Indigenous villages of Mahdia, Aishalton and Orealla, as well as Bartica, will shortly commission radio outreach stations. Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, who is also the Minister with responsibility for public information, revealed this while being interviewed by Julie Lewis on ‘Let’s gyaff’ on the National Communications Network (NCN) radio programme on 102.5FM Voice of Guyana, on Thursday.

The Prime Minister said this will make it easier to transmit information in a timely manner to more hinterland communities. “Soon we are going to be commissioning radio outreach stations in Mahdia, Bartica and then we will move to Aishalton and Orealla. Apart from having a newspaper that will communicate with Indigenous peoples in its written form we are now adding the vital outreach.”
Reference was made to emergencies which arose in several hinterland communities and the importance of having broadcasting stations close by which aided in the dissemination of advisories and other public service announcements.
“The fact that we were able to commission these two outreach radio stations means a lot for people in the hinterland, Indigenous peoples in particular. As you can see when we had the floods in the Rupununi, we were able to communicate directly to them all the alerts – that kids must not play in the water, there were snakes in the water, people were asked to remove from those areas that are likely to be affected by flash floods et cetera, et cetera.”
Prime Minister Nagamootoo also said that work was done on Radio Paiwomak and it is now refurbished with the ability to reach more persons with a better quality of radio service.
Community radio stations were established in the newly named towns of Lethem in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and Mabaruma in Region One (Barima-Waini) this year. According to the Department of Public Information, these two are in addition to Radio Paiwomak which was the first community radio established in the early 2000.
The aim of the Government’s community radio stations project is to link the Indigenous communities through communication. The established radio stations are all affiliates of the National Communications Network (NCN) and broadcast on the national frequency.