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Timor-Leste

Youth Radio for Peace Building Project

Participant Recieves Award

Search For Common Ground (SFCG) began working in Timor Leste in 2010, with a USAID funded project entitled Youth Radio for Peacebuilding which sought to improve the economic prospects of youth through skills building, media and outreach activities, and enhanced mechanisms for collaboration. The project had the overall goal ‘to transform the way in which youth in Timor-Leste deal with conflict, away from adversarial approaches toward cooperative solution’. The program involved Timorese youth, media, civil society and government stakeholders across Timor-Leste’s thirteen districts. The main activities conducted by SFCG in the implementation of this project were the production of two radio magazines programs, the production of affiliated talk shows, trainings for  radio journalists on ‘Common Ground’ radio techniques, and two National Youth Forums.

Key achievements:

  • The production of two good quality radio shows, Babadok Rebenta! and Karau Dikur ba Dame (24 and 25 episodes respectively), that explore issues important to youth and which promote non-adversarial approaches to conflict and which have been well received by listeners and that have involved 16 Community Radio Stations.

  • The support provided to the community stations through training and collaboration has been positive and has resulted in their increased capacity.

  • Two Youth Forums conducted in 2010 and 2011 were unique events that succeeded in providing a platform for youth from all districts to discuss issues of importance to them and to link directly with decision makers. They also proved to be successful means of receiving direct feedback from youth and an effective tool for influencing the content of the radio shows.

  • In a short period of time, the establishment of a vibrant, effective, and committed office, staffed for the first time in the country by an all-Timorese staff.

All of the above have resulted in a very strong base from which the next phase of SFCG projects in Timor-Leste can be launched.

Timor-Leste Youth Forum