Cultural Survival and Community Radio
CULTURAL SURVIVAL is a non-profit organization that has been partnering with indigenous people to defend their lands, languages and cultures. Since 1972, this Boston-based organization has worked in every corner of the globe to empower native peoples to maintain their traditional cultures while under the onslaught of western economic, social and political forces.
One program is the Community Radio Project in Guatemala.
The indigenous peoples of Guatemala have kept their culture through 500 years of colonization, brutal repression, and, most recently, 36 years of genocide that killed 200,000 Maya. But where brute force failed, globalization is succeeding. Mainstream Western entertainment is now flooding Guatemala‘s airwaves, hammering home the 24-hour-a-day message that Mayans should abandon their languages, their clothing, their spirituality, and their identities. And the only thing holding back this tidal wave of homogeneity is a network of tiny 500-watt radio stations.
CULTURAL SURVIVAL has partnered with Guatemalan nongovernmental organizations to strengthen this network of 175 community radio stations across the country, many of which broadcast in one or more of the country’s 23 indigenous languages. The stations provide news, educational programming, health information, and traditional music, all reinforcing pride in Mayan heritage. CULTURAL SURVIVAL provides the equipment and organizational expertise; the communities provide the people and the passion. Non-profit community radio plays a critical role in the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people in Guatemala. Francisco Xico, a Mayan who volunteers at his local community radio station says, “The radio helps keep our culture and language alive.” Another radio volunteer, Angelica Cubur Sul says, “As an Indigenous women, I can say that the community radio is the only place that I can express my views and opinions and be sure that they will be heard by the entire town. The Mayor expresses his opinion on our radio, so do the police, and so do I.”
And it’s working: languages that were on the brink of extinction have come back into common use; traditional marimba music that was being replaced with top-40 pop songs is being played again; and people are wearing the distinctive traje that defines where they come from and who they are. But there are still serious challenges to overcome: Guatemalan law allows the police to shut down radio stations and confiscate equipment under the pretense of national security. If they don’t like a message, the source of the message gets turned off permanently.
CULTURAL SURVIVAL’s Radio Project has five primary objectives:
Pressing for reform of Guatemala’s telecommunications law.
Strengthening community radio stations’ ability to produce quality content for broadcast to Indigenous peoples throughout the country.
Training community radio volunteers with skills in journalism, lobbying, content creation, radionovela script-writing, and Internet use.
Assisting the radio stations and the seven radio associations to build a viable network to aid in the acquisition of needed news gathering, communication, and broadcast equipment.
Building local capacity to sustain the project beyond Cultural Survival’s five-year involvement.
For more information about this project and other CULTURAL SURVIVAL projects around the world
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