With apologies for cross posting:

AMARC Asia Pacific Community Radio Training Forum to be held from 17-19 November, 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand 

September 16, 2011, Kathmandu. The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters,  AMARC Asia Pacific, is organising the 1^st Community Radio Training Forum from 17-19 November, 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand. The ‘training of trainers’ event will be hosted by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission of Thailand (NBTC) and is supported by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP-ROAP), Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UNESCO, UNICEF, EED/NOVIB, and South East Asia Pres Alliance (SEAPA). Regional and national partners such as the Australian Indigenous Communications Association (AICA), Association of Community Radio Broadcasters of Nepal (ACORAB), Media Monitor Thailand, FMYY-Japan, National Federation of Community Radios (NFCR) of Thailand, and the Blue Diamond Society, Nepal will be leading various training workshops in the Community Radio Training Forum.

The capacity building event will offer opportunity to about 150 community radio broadcasters of Asia Pacific region to systematize their experiences, to network with and learn from international trainers and experts and to define strategies to increase the effectiveness of their interventions. Participants will review strategies for setting up community radio stations, promoting community participation, program production, production technology, and advocacy strategies for improving conditions for the development of community broadcasting. Utilizing training workshops and hands on demonstrations the Training Forum will promote gender sensitivity, strengthen community broadcasting for poverty reduction, and enhance the capacity of community radio stations to address climate change and disaster management. In addition to explaining concepts and principles, the Training Forum will include practical subjects such as research techniques, script writing, interviewing, editing, and using digital recording and computer based editing.

Sharing of ideas and learning of skills will be based on specific thematic streams of workshops so that broadcasters can directly apply their learning to address the concerns of the communities in the Asia-Pacific region such as food security, good governance, empowering women, improving literacy, generating employment opportunities, improving local governance, and promoting the rights of the marginalised. The Training Forum will organise six thematic workshops and participants will be enrolled  into specific workshops during the entire period of the Forum.

The workshop will be held at the Ambassador, Sukhumvit. (http://www.amtel.co.th/), Bangkok, Thailand. Further details are available at http://www.amarc.org/index.php?p=thailand_Forum_EN. Registration for the Training Forum is available at:

http://www.amarc.org/index.php?p=registration_asiapacific_thailand_conference.

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About AMARC:

AMARC is an international non-governmental organization serving the community radio movement in over 110 countries, and advocating for the right to communicate at the international, national, local and neighbourhood levels. AMARC has an International Secretariat in Montreal. It has regional sections in Africa, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, North America and Asia Pacific and offices in Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Brussels, and Kathmandu. For more information, please contact Suman Basnet, Regional Coordinator for Asia-Pacific, [log in to unmask] or visit www.asiapacific.amarc.org.