Community Radio Station and Multimedia Centre
Bequia Community High School, St. Vincent and the Grenadines

The project aims to enhance communications on Bequia by the establishment at the Bequia Community High School of a community multi-media centre with a short range radio station broadcasting local entertainment, educational and informative programmes developed specifically for the Bequia community.

While mainland St. Vincent has a number of FM radio stations, the Grenadine islands have none. This means that local news and entertainment from the small islands often take a back seat to mainland matters of interest. Students of the two secondary schools on the island and, to a lesser extent, those of the primary schools, have been involved in the UNESCO Sandwatch/Small Islands Voice programme for an extended period. They have achieved international, regional and national recognition for their work and are continually contributing to programmes of national development. Yet their activities and the involvement of UNESCO are not sufficiently well known. The proposed Bequia radio station seeks to fill this void and aims to draw more schools into discussing environmental and national issues at a wider level.

The local student-run FM station will have the capacity to broadcast locally produced programmes, thus encouraging the development of journalistic skills, music composition, interviewing techniques, etc, in the students of the Bequia Community High School.

The project started in January 2006 with the purchase of the necessary equipment and the furnishing a room at the school for the multimedia centre.

Preliminary training of teachers and students is underway and the centre is being overseen by a board of directors comprising members of the school and local community.