A-Z index | Search

Radio Enfant

Organization

Atelier Radio Enfant/Fondation Radio Enfant

Contact details

Michel Delorme
11 chemin Inook
Chelsea, Qc Canada J9B 2J7
Tel: +1 819 827 3146
Fax: +1 819 827-3591
Mobile: +1 819 743 8180
Email: info@radioenfant.ca
Website: www.radioenfant.ca/

Title of project

Radio Enfant

Project partners

Provincial Ministries of Education
School commissions and/or committees
Ministry for the Canadian Heritage
Community, public and private radio stations
Radio professionals

Location

Throughout Canada and the French-speaking world.

Background

Atelier Radio Enfant and the Fondation Radio Enfant are initiatives of Michel Delorme, a pioneer of community radio in Quebec and French Canada, and president and founder of World Association of Community Radio (AMARC) between 1982 and 1992. He also worked with Agence Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie to set up 26 rural radio stations.

After creating a radio project at his daughter's primary school, Grand Boisé, (Chelsea, Quebec), from March 2001 he made partnerships to extend the experiment to 54 Canadian schools. In spring 2002 more than 100 took part in the First Festival of Children's Radio.

A second influence was the creation of the first permanent radio station entirely dedicated to children and teenagers in the Outaouais and Ontarian East areas, planned for March 2003.

Atelier Radio Enfant also offers expertise to projects concerned with international cooperation for child protection, a priority of Canadian government aid.

Aims and objectives

Atelier Radio Enfant Inc aims to develop an under-represented sector of broadcasting.

In Canada there are plenty of television channels and time slots on the mainstream channel for young people, but very little on radio to meet the needs of those aged 5-18, who make up 20 per cent of the population. Canadian law is quite clear that broadcasting must, 'through its programming answer to the needs and the interests, and reflect the condition and aspirations, of Canadian men, women and children'.

Objectives

• Facilitating the expression of young people through simple and accessible media, focusing on their creativity.

• Providing training in radio technology and production techniques, its history, place in the media landscape, formats, finance, marketing, audiences etc.

• Developing a participative and critical spirit in relation to the media and discovering the possibilities of making a different, alternative and citizen's radio.

• Supporting the discovery of local and regional communities through communication; bringing together adults; to make new points of view heard from the perspective of young people.

• Supporting and promoting the development of French-speaking culture.

• Supporting project management, cooperation, entrepreneurship etc.

• Discovering the richness of children's radio in a landscape from which children have been absent.

Target audience

The primary target is children, but also their parents and everyone interested in childhood. The participation of parents and those working with young people is an absolute necessity.

Wider beneficiaries

Children and their communities. In order to sensitize adults to the opinions, tastes and interests of young people, the project works in close cooperation with parents, teachers, school management and local radios.

Involvement of children

Children make, present and broadcast their programmes.

Summary of project

The first Festival of Children's Radio was inspired by positive evaluation of the March 2001 experiment and the interest expressed by many schools throughout Canada.

For 100 days, from mid-March to 24 June 2001, more than 100 Canadian schools presented one day of radio. More than 10,000 indigenous and Francophone children produced the programmes, alongside international contributions from France, Belgium, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Louisiana and other places. The programmes were retransmitted by local stations in Ottawa and Montreal and on the Internet.

Partners and funders

See 'Project partners' above, plus community organizations and private foundations.

Cost

Short term experiments of Radio Enfant in 100 communities:

100 projects at an average cost of Canadian $2,500 each = Canadian $250,000 per year.

Development (support, coordination, hardware): Canadian $50,000 per year.

Strengths of project

The positive assessment of the two years' experiments and increasing interest have generated greater participation of children in media communication.

Challenges

• Treating children as real partners from the start.

• Ensuring good participation of parents.

• Avoiding risks associated with the marketing of Radio Enfant - to protect this activity from commercialization.

• Ensuring effective integration of the media in the school programme.

• Accepting that the initial step is teaching: encouraging self-expression by the children, and a listening mode of training.

• Providing teaching and organizing aids: teaching handbooks, websites, forums and information and training sessions for each project.

Evaluation

A media education resource centre made a complete evaluation of the experience of the March 2001 experiment in the Montreal area. It is available at CREM.

Its conclusions were very positive - that the project was very beneficial for the children's education.

Lessons learned

To offer more support in terms of training and technical expertise to the teaching personnel and to local communities to ensure that there is adequate adult support for the children.

Sustainability

This results from the significant impact of sensitizing the general public to children. Also, the greater confidence among children that comes from being able to participate in communication by the media.

Anecdote

There are many anecdotes that speak to the effectiveness of the project, but the most fascinating thing is the creative potential of children when they are given access to large audiences.

Good ideas

Do it! Just do it... call on the children in the neighbourhood, get them to choose their music and sing their songs, especially the youngest ones, who are the people for whom things are the more 'magic', who are most naïve in their contribution to communication.

MAGIC partners | Privacy policy | Top