Shannon June Kittlitz
Friday 5th September, 2008
With nearly a hundred reported deaths and a million made homeless following the floods in Bihar, Feba India was called in to respond. Our colleagues in India are partnering with other groups to respond, based on their experiences from the FIRST Response Disaster Radio training workshop and trial in June. Suma Emmanuel, Feba India, writes: "A request from the Indian government to set up an emergency radio response to the flooding has brought Feba India once again into partnership with Nomad India (who ran the transmission side of the FIRST Response trial)." "The situation in some interior places is rather grim, and gloom/sadness/despair is in the hearts of the people," says a medical doctor working in Bihar. "Food and relief are scarce; we
have had reports of people not eating anything for a week now. And the monsoon season is still bringing heavy rains almost every day." Feba India is providing its pre-recorded programmes for disaster response to All India Radio (AIR), and they have applied for three FM licences in order to broadcast into areas where there is no AIR coverage. The FIRST Response coordinator travels to India today to join in operations with Feba India staff. Earlier this week, Feba UK engineers prepared a Chrysolite suitcase studio for shipping out to India, as one of two suitcase studios to be used in this FIRST Response Disaster Radio project. Each suitcase studio includes a small mixer, a laptop computer for recording, a CD player to play music and a small digital recorder for making field recordings. The suitcase studio is a simple 'on-air' studio when connected to a transmitter. Upon arrival, starting to broadcast can take as little as 30 minutes. The coordinator says: "You open it up, you plug it in, you turn it on, you start recording - you start doing radio right away." An FM radio transmitter is being provided by NOMAD, a community radio consultancy in India, and FEBCanada has provided funding to distribute 1000 portable radios in emergency response. FEBC has given the FIRST Response team start-up funding, and the team are seeking more funding from any interested supporters to cover costs for travel, shipping, equipment and supplies. You can give to this special project by sending a cheque payable to 'Feba Radio' and marked 'FIRST Response India'.
To find out more about the Chrysolite suitcase studio, view a video clip here.
http://www.feba.org.uk/supporter/mark5ove.wmv
Friday 5th September, 2008
With nearly a hundred reported deaths and a million made homeless following the floods in Bihar, Feba India was called in to respond. Our colleagues in India are partnering with other groups to respond, based on their experiences from the FIRST Response Disaster Radio training workshop and trial in June. Suma Emmanuel, Feba India, writes: "A request from the Indian government to set up an emergency radio response to the flooding has brought Feba India once again into partnership with Nomad India (who ran the transmission side of the FIRST Response trial)." "The situation in some interior places is rather grim, and gloom/sadness/despair is in the hearts of the people," says a medical doctor working in Bihar. "Food and relief are scarce; we
have had reports of people not eating anything for a week now. And the monsoon season is still bringing heavy rains almost every day." Feba India is providing its pre-recorded programmes for disaster response to All India Radio (AIR), and they have applied for three FM licences in order to broadcast into areas where there is no AIR coverage. The FIRST Response coordinator travels to India today to join in operations with Feba India staff. Earlier this week, Feba UK engineers prepared a Chrysolite suitcase studio for shipping out to India, as one of two suitcase studios to be used in this FIRST Response Disaster Radio project. Each suitcase studio includes a small mixer, a laptop computer for recording, a CD player to play music and a small digital recorder for making field recordings. The suitcase studio is a simple 'on-air' studio when connected to a transmitter. Upon arrival, starting to broadcast can take as little as 30 minutes. The coordinator says: "You open it up, you plug it in, you turn it on, you start recording - you start doing radio right away." An FM radio transmitter is being provided by NOMAD, a community radio consultancy in India, and FEBCanada has provided funding to distribute 1000 portable radios in emergency response. FEBC has given the FIRST Response team start-up funding, and the team are seeking more funding from any interested supporters to cover costs for travel, shipping, equipment and supplies. You can give to this special project by sending a cheque payable to 'Feba Radio' and marked 'FIRST Response India'.
To find out more about the Chrysolite suitcase studio, view a video clip here.
http://www.feba.org.uk/supporter/mark5ove.wmv
(FEBA Radio)
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