FM stations from Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Islamabad are gathering in Islamabad today for an orientation training workshop on engaging local communities through radio for community peace building.

The producers and presenters from over 20 FM stations including seven from AJK and 13 from Islamabad will be attending the training being jointly conducted by Intermedia, a Pakistani media development organization that works on advocacy, research and training on media issues and Uks Research Center that works on raising the profile of women in media.  The training is a follow-up on the landmark Radio Partnership for Peace (RPP) created in June in Islamabad by 60 independent, government and campus FM stations from all over Pakistan, including the Educational Broadcasters Forum.

“This is the first time that FM stations from AJK or Islamabad are coming together for institutional capacity building on the issue of promoting peace through radio,” Adnan Rehmat, the Executive Director for Intermedia said. “The training will focus on themes outlined in the Declaration of the RPP including radio and conflict transformation, conflict theory and practice, identifying and targeting audience and using radio talk shows to bring communities to a common ground for everyday conflict prevention and transformation,” Rehmat added. He said the training will orient the radio stations in various aspects of conflict and how radio can play an effective role in promoting peace while at the same time increasing radio audiences.

The trainings are being conducted in response to a demand by several stations during the radio summit and are part of a major national initiative launched in June 2010 to raise the profile of FM radio in Pakistan. This initiative was launched by Search For Common Ground, an international organization that promotes and facilitates collaborative approaches to peace and development, in partnership with Intermedia and Uks.  This training is part of series of three primary trainings conducted for a total of 60 FM stations from across Pakistan that participated in the radio summit. The first primary training was held for 20 stations from Punjab and Sindh in Karachi in the first week of July and 20 stations from Balochistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the second week of July. The training in Islamabad, beginning from today, is the third in the series.  A round of advanced trainings for 40 FM stations from all over the country will be conducted in September. The trainings are aimed at building the capacity of FM stations in Balochistan, FATA, Gilgit-Baltistan, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and AJK to empower them to use dialogue as a way of addressing local issues and to promote peace in their respective communities.

This initiative will provide access for them to world standard methodologies, best practices, success stories and technical resources on raising professional standards, becoming sector leaders, improving community profiles of the stations.