After being postponed a week to clean up water damage, training of the programme producers for the new FM community radio station in Malawi will begin on 8 December, continuing through 19 December. Due to the unexpected delay, this training will overlap the on-air date for test transmissions, beginning on 17 December.

The Station Manager says: “I feel it will be good that the training will overlap with the station test phase, because it will give the personnel exposure to the ‘real thing’ with the trainer present.”

Flood clean up

Clean up has been done swiftly to recover from the flash flood on 25 November that poured muddy water through the ducts into the generator room and the studio rooms soaking the carpets. The carpets have been removed, cleaned and dried. Feba’s Development Engineer in Malawi says: “We will monitor the carpets for mould or mildew and replace them if necessary. The rooms have been cleaned and the ducting was dried by circulating air through the system. Once dry, we scraped the mud off the inside surface of the ducts.” Programme producer training was delayed for one week to clean up and arrange for refitting the carpet.

Radio programme production training

The goal of the training is that each of the new programme producers will be technically competent to produce radio programmes. Training topics are presented in multiple parts to give students sufficient time for practical application and exercises including:

• What is digital sound?
• Conducting an interview
• Introduction to studio computers and filing systems
• Digital audio editing
• And more…

The Project Coordinator who is leading this initial training says: “I think that their training will be ongoing for the whole of the first year at least and that the Station Manager will have a big part to play in this. He will want to mould these guys to be good radio producers.”