A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

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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The Advocacy Project
1326 14th Street NW
Washington DC 20005
phone: +1 202-332-3900
fax: +1 202-332-4600