As World Radio Day (Sunday February 13) approaches, US-based non-profit Cultural Survival is looking for projects to help indigenous groups expand and improve their broadcasting activities.

This year’s eleventh UNESCO-proclaimed World Radio Day focusses on ‘radio and trust’.

Nor is it limited to radio. In its 2022 call for proposals for Indigenous community radio stations, it invites applications across a number of areas including building capacity in new communication technologies such as streaming, servers, links, web pages, online radio, digital press and community TV.

Applications from eligible countries – Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Nepal, North India, Botswana, Philippines, Indonesia, Congo, Cambodia, Namibia and South Africa – close on March 7.

Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Community Media Fund supports community radio and other media platforms run by indigenous peoples “as tools to strengthen their broadcast infrastructure and systems, and provide training opportunities in journalism, broadcasting, audio editing, technical skills, and more” to indigenous community radio journalists and media producers around the world.

The fund supports stations as the means of revitalising indigenous cultures, languages, history and the promotion of indigenous rights, as well as in elevating the leadership of women and youth communicators. See more about applying here.

The right to establish self-determined communication platforms is enshrined in Article 16 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Cultural Survival says it supported 57 radio and media projects in 23 countries, totalling US$340,500 in 2021, training more than 50 indigenous women in radio production and journalism. A community media youth fellowship supported 25 young people in gaining new audiovisual and media leadership skills.

Advocacy focusses on pushing for the democratisation of radio frequencies by changing telecommunication laws in countries where indigenous peoples want to have their own radio stations and where they face criminalisation for claiming their right to freedom of expression, such as in a recently-won case related to community radio in Guatemala.

For more information visit Cultural Survival's website.