A Voice For the Voiceless

The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change.

We are currently recruiting graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.


The Impact of Service



"I look at myself as having the potential to be as strong and caring as the amazing women I met in Kenya."

Kate Cummings (Tufts University) volunteered in 2009 as a Peace Fellow for Vital Voices in Africa.

For more 2009 feedback click here.


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Fellows > Past Fellows and ... > Peace Fellows 2008 > Heather Gilberds ...

Heather Gilberds and the Jagaran Media Center (JMC)

Heather Gilberds is a master’s student in communication at Carleton University. Her research interests lie in the area of grassroots media, specifically, the potential for community media to empower marginalized social groups.

Her focus on grassroots media and development is a culmination of time spent traveling throughout South-East Asia and extensive involvement in community radio. While traveling through the Golden Triangle, Malaysia, and Indonesia, Heather noticed that extreme poverty was coupled with a profound disparity in access to media resources.

Upon returning to Canada and dipping her feet into radio at the University of Alberta’s campus station, she realized the power of community media to mobilize people, to enact change, and to tell the otherwise untold stories.

She has witnessed firsthand the power of community radio to rethink power relations by reforming who gets to speak, who gets to hear and in what capacity. Holding strong to the belief that community media are crucial sites of resistance to structures of power and domination, Heather intends to use her time with The Jagaran Media Center in Nepal as a launching pad for research on the power of local, participatory radio to mobilize people in their shared articulation of oppression.

Throughout her involvement in community radio, Heather has been a strong advocate for independent media development and activism. She is thrilled to have the opportunity to participate with the Jagaran Media Center (JMC) in a project that mandates empowerment through local, independent media production.

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Read Heather's blog!

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