February 26, 2005; Rio: I mentioned before that I’ve had a few meetings here at Viva Rio to plan for the future. Well here is what I know about my upcoming projects. They look like they will be a mix of important and exciting work. One project will be promoting a book within the NGO world to get research funded. The other will be helping on the first steps of setting up a community radio station in one of Rio’s favelas, run for and by kids to promote a culture of peace, and help them stay out of the drug war.

The Book Project

The first and primary task is to get the message out about a new book written by Luke Dowdney, the head of the COAV project (Children in Organized Armed Violence) here at Viva Rio.

In 2003, he wrote another very eye-opening book, ‘Children of the Drug Trade’. It is one of the only academically respectable books I have found that is based on the first hand accounts of children involved in armed drug conflicts in Rio.

This new book is on research from 10 different countries, including the USA, on situations where children are involved in organized armed violence, either gangs, wars, or other kinds of armed conflicts.

Like any good book on a sad topic, it is focused on solutions, on how to craft projects and policies that can ameliorate or eliminate the devastating effects of children carrying and using weapons in a formal hierarchical organization.

My job will be to work with the Viva Rio team on getting the proactive message to NGOs, academics, international organizations, and governments that can apply the research to cases in the field of children involved in organized armed violence. This campaign will also target the press.

I will be working with AP in Washington to track down the lists of individuals that will want to receive the book, or highlights from it, and synthesize the parts that would be relevant to them. For example, summarizing the lessons from the research on Chicago gangs for public safety officials as well as local NGOs dealing with gang problems in Chicago.

The idea is to use my knowledge of the USA NGO and foundation world to help Viva Rio and to help children in organized armed violence around the world.

All of this has to be done by April 12th when the book is released. So, go take a look and place your order. www.coav.org (some reports and updates are being posted this week)

The Radio Plan

I have some experience as a radio journalist and some as a tech geek for theatre and sound production. When I heard Viva Rio was interested in setting up a community radio station to offer job training, teach discipline and values, and provide constructive activities for favela youth, I said “I want in on that.”

Viva Rio coordinates a network of community radio stations, though none of them are directly owned or managed by them. Rather, Viva Rio helps by the member stations to exchange content, ideas, and best practices, not unlike National Public Radio in the USA helps its member stations; except here, there is lots more music, and no city wide or national talk programs. Because of this, Viva Rio is very well placed and experienced in helping to set up radio stations in communities.

Now, the Luta Pela Paz and Radio Viva Rio teams are going to work together to craft a project proposal and get the money. I offered to be the point man, to figure out details (except the technical side of broadcasting), and they seemed happy to let me. Lucky me, right!

So now, I have to figure out how many kids it will take to run a station (another one I visited operated 24 hours a day with 14 adults, for example). Also, how many adults, and of what skill level, will be needed to manage it. I need to research what kinds of programs other stations run, and how we can incorporate promoting a culture of peace, job training and educational programming into the station in a way that appeals to youth and children (and the rest of the community).

Because of population density in Rio, its possible for a community station to reach about half a million people. That is a serious market. And the world of community radio is big here too. Almost one third of all radio listeners at any given time are listening to community stations. On Rio’s community stations it is common to hear a DJ read shout-outs from kids to other kids, and play whole shows entirely on requests because they get so many calls. So I am excited to dive in and see what needs to be done.

And of course, the most important part: fundraising. Viva Rio Radio is currently preparing a budget for equipment, and I am sure it will not be cheap. So we will have to start writing many proposals too.

This is a much longer term project and we will see how my role in it emerges. However, in the meantime, just researching how a community station functions in a favela of Rio will be a thrilling and rewarding experience.