Progress Report – May 2003 Attn: Jocelyne Josiah, Advisor in Communication and Information for the Caribbean – UNESCO Office for the Caribbean Radio Toco – Trinidad & Tobago Radio GED – Barbados Roots FM - Jamaica Radio Cocodrilo - Cuba

1.0 Introduction: MultiMedia for Caribbean Communities (MCC) Reports

Current report:

The previous report, submitted in January 2003, focused on the successes, challenges, recommendations and updated timeline for the MCC project here in the Caribbean. The current report will focus on the following seven (7) set of deliverables as articulated in the second contract for the project:

1. Radio Cocodrilo and Roots FM – update on station readiness, working space, preparation of premises and Internet connectivity

2. Community involvement and contribution through baseline studies documented in traditional formats and then on the project web site

3. Equipment sourcing, installation and maintenance

4. Project logo, stationery and brochure

5. Station web sites based on feedback from community groups

6. Functioning project web site

7. Specialised training programme with updated schedule

1.0 Radio Cocodrilo and Roots FM –
update on station readiness, working space, preparation of premises and Internet connectivity

For the period, the assessment focus was on Radio Cocodrilo since all the other three radio stations had been visited earlier. In the case of Roots FM, Jamaica, the working space for the Project Coordinator was put on hold due to the refinancing, refurbishing and re-structuring activities taking place at the station. It is expected that working space will be available at the end of May 2003.

At Radio Cocodrilo, preliminary discussions on the readiness of the station took place with management, staff and stakeholders from Radio Cocodrilo, Radio Caribe. Radio Cuba, Cuba’s UNESCO’s Office, the telecentre Joven Club and the telecommunications provider, Etecsa.

(See Table I in the Appendix for activities in Cuba )

The station tour included a visit to the radio room, to an on-air studio, a guest room, an adjoining video room and to the nearby primary school, restaurant and the turtle nursery which formed part of the protected zone in the area. While there was adequate community radio space with a unique video room arrangement , there were no computers in the station, resulting in all radio activities being manually done. The situation of this community radio station which serves 314 citizens, contrasted heavily with the much larger government-run Radio Caribe in the capital of Island of Youth, Nueva Gerona, where there were 83 staff members, 6 computers and 4 studios at the station.

There were two computers at the primary school which also used solar panels for added electricity . This contrasted with the impressive computer labs at the Joven Club telecentre in Nueva Gerona . While the two computers in Cocodrilo seemed adequate for the primary school, the hard drive (20Gb), the internal memory (64 Mb) and the modem speed (9.6 kbps) seemed totally inadequate for the MCC project. In addition , one of the hard drives had been giving problems since November 2002. The more positive and useful findings for the MCC project had to do with the availability of one or two computer tutors in the Cocodrilo community and a pleasant array of Cuban-made multimedia educational software for children.

The radio station has given “Voices” to this previous “Silent Zone”. The radio facilities are new and adequate with the following equipment: 1 Reel to Reel tape, 2 speakers, 2 PA (Public Announcement Systems), 1 Tascam Recorder, 1 Mackie Console,1 CD player, 2 Technics Recorder, 1 Technics Amplifier, 1300 Watt transmitter. The main problems as expressed by the two staff members, had to do with the antenna which was not working and the need for a mixer board plan in order to properly deploy the mixer console. It was also foreseen that there would be a need for staff upgrade due to the general shortage of radio and media expertise in the community. Already, within less than a year, the station had lost one of its three employees.

Other challenges include the fact that due to the limited electricity supply of 12 hours daily, the station is on air for only four hours a day. The radio system is now totally analogue in its operations with back up storage facilities being done to audio cassettes and to reel to reel tapes only.

Admittedly, the most lasting impression of Radio Cocodrilo is its extremely pleasant tropical surroundings with the radio station located within 50 metres of the beach area / Caribbean sea. Wow!

The telecommunications situation in Cocodrilo and by extension, the Internet connectivity, both pose a challenge for the MCC project . There is a total of 4 telephones serving 314 community members. The tour of Etecsa in Nueva Gerona highlighted an impressive fibre optic project being implemented across Cuba, with Nueva Gerona being used as a model for the rest of the country. However, while this is good promise for the future, the telecommunications experts pointed out the need for US $70,000.00 to adequately service Radio Cocodrilo. Talks are currently taking place with China to finance the project. The end result is that there is no immediate connectivity at Radio Cocodrilo since the one telephone line is a shared one, creating dial-up problems as well. The nearest access is in Nueva Gerona, 80 Km away, at a cost of US$15.00 for a 5 hour user card. This service, provided at the Etecsa office, is now being used mostly by tourists.

2.0 Community involvement and contribution
through baseline studies documented in traditional formats and on the project web site

Approximately 75 community members from the four radio stations were interviewed regarding their use of ICT on a personal, community and professional level. The findings from three stations were tabulated and analyzed, with Radio Cocodrilo to be translated and included for the next report. The discussion topics covered the following:

- place of learning, use of computers in daily life, areas of interest, income earning activities with computers, integration with the radio station, community computer services, main trainers, whiz kids and any comments or needs.

(See Table II in the Appendix for details on all the compiled responses)

The findings and participants have been posted on the MCC project site. Some significant findings may be summarized as follows:

• About 20% of the participants were self-taught

• The most frequent usage was word processing and e-mail at 30%

• Radio GED, as expected, showed high frequency usage for assignments and research

• Interestingly, Roots FM had a notable ratio for desktop publishing

• Most popular areas of interest included the Internet, web sites and graphics

• About 50% of those interviewed were unable to identify computer trainers and whiz kids in the community

We have included a sample of the responses for two areas below:

How could we apply our computer knowledge to the radio station?

What kind of computer services are available in the community?

3.0 Equipment sourcing, installation and maintenance

Based on recommendations from the previous report, changes were made to the specifications of the computers. The specifications below show that each station has received at least one fully equipped Multimedia computer with CD/DVD –ROM play back capabilities. The new specifications should facilitate the following:

• Increased storage from the hard drive (30 Gb) and the ability to store audio files and other multimedia files on CD-RW, in preparation for the transformation to community multimedia centres

• The ability to purchase and use e-Learning materials stored on DVD-ROMs and not just CD-ROMs, with the added advantage of full screen video displays.

• The new operating system (Windows XP), a modem with adequate speed, speakers, sound cards and networking card will allow for good audio recording and the ability to network to existing computers.

• The digital cameras will allow for on screen presentations using the slide show software which comes with the gadget. It will also push start the archiving of community activities which will then be uploaded to the station web site or used in Multimedia presentations.

• The web cams will facilitate live online links and video-conferencing capabilities between stations which is all part of the networking objective of the MCC project.

One challenge for the radio stations will be the need to have web editing software such as MS FrontPage. This will be needed to update the site on a constant basis. The immediate plan for the training session is to acquire a 30 tries trial version while the situation is remedied, where necessary. One other challenge will be the need for local support and maintenance after the initial one year warranty period would have expired. These issues will be part of the planned training session scheduled to take place in the next round of activities.

The specifications are seen below:

1 Dell Dimension 8250 Series, Intel Pentium 4 Processor at 2.40GHz
256MB PC 1066 RDRAM
17 in. Monitor
64MB GeForce4 MX Graphics Card with TV-Out
30 GB Hard Drive ;3.5in Floppy Drive
Windows XP Professional
Scroll Mouse ;Integrated NIC Card
56K Data Fax Modem
CD-RW/DVD Combination Drive
Office Small Business XP
Harmon Kardon Speakers;Integrated Sound Card

1 Kodak 2.0 Megapixel Zoom Digital Camera
2 Logitech Quickcam Pro Web Cameras

4.0 Project logo, stationery and brochure

The final project logo is still being debated with six new options being submitted during the last activity period. The brief for the logos below included the following:

• The need to “say” Caribbean ( eg with the map )

• To need to say radio and digital audio (hence the microhone)

• To need to say video (hence the video cable)

• To need to say that T&T is the hub (hence the lines radiating from that area)

• The need for a typeface that is more relaxed and less straight and formal ( eg a freeform handscript typeface)

• The need for appropriate colour-for warmth reflecting the Caribbean's hue

A brochure was also designed for community members and stakeholders, with the main message urging them to “Get involved with MCC now”. The content information included:

• The project background, objectives, participants and outputs

• A 15 step technology Vision for the new MCC project

• A 10 step guideline on the benefits and meaning of community radio

• Images from the four stations and a front page collage

• Contact details for UNESCO’s Office for the Caribbean

(See attached brochure done in pdf format – to also be made downloadable from the project site)

5.0 Station web sites based on feedback from community groups

Content submissions from the community members were used to structure the web sites below, with some key functions such as feedback, search, guestbook and links being added as common areas for all four stations Other common content areas included history, programmes, staff , community and a Multimedia section.

These web sites will be formally presented in the training session and will be used as the basis for learning to update and maintain the web sites for the period of the project as well as after the project deliverables would have been completed. Feedback will be solicited based on the first home pages already designed, with suggestions for changes to any of the content structure.

These sites are also being given unique domain names such as rootsfm.com, with the registration and hosting activities expected to be completed by the end of May 2003. Meanwhile they are temporarily being hosted on the project web site at http://www.reggaelovers.com/mcc

6.0 Functioning project web site

The project web site temporarily housed at www.reggaelovers.com/mccc, has moved from the work in progress stage and is now fully functional with an e-forum and information about the project. For the period, the following upgrades were done:

• An animated slide show was done for Radio Cocodrilo

• A link to the benefits of community radio was included

• The project goals were updated to reflect the 15 step Vision and content of the brochure

• An online help guide was done to encourage use of the e-forum

• A link was made to the Unesco web site

• A multimedia gallery of audio, video and image files was created

• The baseline study was posted as an activity link

• The news and events section was updated with images from World Press Freedom Day 2003

6.0 Specialised training programme with updated schedule

Based on feedback from community members and from some radio station staff, a final outline for the specialized training programme was presented. Main topics included the following:

• Fundamentals -Radio communications, community radio, radio browsing

• Digital Audio and Archiving

• ICT Applications (Windows, Word Processing)

• Multimedia production –presentation

• Web site maintenance

New training dates were also proposed for the four radio station, with three confirmations to date. The new dates are:

• Radio Toco- May 19-23, 2003

• Radio GED- May 26-30, 2003

• Roots FM- June 2-7, 2003

• Radio Cocodrilo- June 16 – 20, 2003

The newly updated training programme has also been posted on the web site and may be viewed below:

Swiss FIT Community Multimedia Centre
(Multimedia for Caribbean Communities)

Specialised Training of Trainers Programme June 2003