DPI NGO Briefing (Side event at the 62nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women) "Community Broadcasters: Building Capacities for Amplifying Voices of Rural Women" - 23 March 2018

Marcia Ward
Retired Information Officer at UNDPI Radio Caribbean Unit

Marcia Ward was born on July 20, 1945 in Barbados. In August 1973, she joined the United Nations Department of Public Information where she worked in the Press Accreditations Office. After a few years, she transferred to the Radio Service and worked as a Production Assistant and later, as a Radio Producer. In 1989, she served as an elections monitoring officer in Namibia. In 1995 she was assigned to the United Nations Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) for eight months. As a Radio Producer for UNAMIR Radio, she traveled to various sites and events where she gathered material, interviewed government and non-governmental officials. She produced programmes and news for the daily live broadcast. In 1989, she gained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Media Communications from Hunter College, City University of New York. She retired from the United Nations in August 2005.

 

Sheila Katzman 
Community and Socio-Radio and Applied Theatre Consultant

Sheila Katzman is a specialist in media and women’s rights, focusing on planning, developing, training and implementing tools of change. She is currently working to get a women’s bill of rights in New York City that is based on the framework of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All forms of discrimination against Women (CEDAW). She has engineered public outreach in New York City and as far away as Massachusetts, where she facilitated CEDAW workshops for the League of Women’s Voters, New York University, Simmons College and the University of Massachusetts. As a former United Nations Professional, Sheila designed and set up United Nations Peace Radio, Radio UNAMSIL, in Sierra Leone in both FM and Shortwave broadcasts covering the world. The radio station provided a forum for the public to discuss issues of importance and helped the society reevaluate traditional practices such as education for the girlchild and female circumcision.

 

Grace Uddin
Responsible for editorial and sales management

Grace Uddin started her media career in 2004 as a reporter in Radyo Natin and as a correspondent in Manila-based online outfit www.bulatlat.com. In 2007, She became one of the pioneers of Davao City’s first online news magazine www.davaotoday.com and worked as a staff writer and later on as the managing editor. At present, she is connected with Radyo ni Juan Network, one of the fastest growing network of community radio stations in Mindanao. She was one of the Philippine journalists accredited by the Royal Norwegian Government to cover the peace talks between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines held in Norway, Italy and The Netherlands in 2016 and 2017.

Birgitte Jallov
Director of EMPOWERHOUSE

Birgitte Jallov is the director of EMPOWERHOUSE, an initiative from where Birgitte among others supports community media through onsite and online capacity building, advice and support. Birgitte has worked with community radio since 1980 in her native Denmark and since then in many of the 70 countries and more than 300 realities, where she has worked. Birgitte is a member of IAWRT (www.iawrt.org), is on the board of CMFE (www.cmfe.eu); was a board member and chair of Panos London; part of the first steering committee and board of AMARC 1982-1985; a part of AMARC’s Women’s International Network (WIN); and a co-founder of Denmark’s first Women’s Community Radio Station.

Archana Kapoor
Founder of Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation (SMART)

Ms. Archana Kapoor is a filmmaker, a publisher of a monthly news magazine and an activist. She is the Founder of Seeking Modern Applications for Real Transformation (SMART) – a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that works with marginalized communities in India, particularly women and children. She runs a community radio station in the impoverished community of Mewat. In just over seven years the radio station has become a vehicle to address grievances of the predominantly Muslim population, improve governance and create opportunities for growth and development inclusion and gender equality.