<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2180" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Verdana size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Dear
friends,<BR>We would like to share with you the proceedings of the discussion
we<BR>organised in Sri Lanka on "Community radio - lets make it
happen".<BR><BR>A discussion "Community radio-lets make it happen" was organised
by<BR>Practical Action. Community radio practitioners, broadcasters,
academics<BR>and NGO representatives participated in the discussion. Community
radio<BR>then and now, the challenge of empowering listeners, a legal and
policy<BR>framework that ensures freedom of expression and right to
communication<BR>was the key themes on which panelists expressed their
views. <BR><BR>The panelists were Sunil Wijesinghe - controller of Kotmale
Community<BR>Radio, Wijedasa Hewage - Director of Sinhala Services of the Sri
Lanka<BR>Broadcasting Corporation, Tilak Jayaratne - Senior broadcaster,
Thilina<BR>Samarasuriya -Director of the Training School of Sri Lanka
Broadcasting<BR>Corporation, Kapila M Gamage- Senior broadcaster, Vasana
Wickremasena<BR>-Open University and sajan venniyoor joined on skype from
India. <BR> <BR>Learning more about community media initiatives that
have worked is<BR>important, to get more interested individuals and groups on
community<BR>radio to join and to move forward collectively, importance of
empowering<BR>listeners to lobby for reviving community radios, initiating
the<BR>transmission of the community radio station in a village in
Polonnaruwa<BR>which was initially set up to work alongside another project
which did<BR>not take off, were some of the suggestions that came from
the<BR>participants. <BR><BR>As a next step participants agreed to be
on a mailing list that will be<BR>linked to the Janthakshan.net portal and share
information. This<BR>discussion was held at the Practical Action conference room
on the 13th<BR>of June 2008.<BR><BR>Thank you<BR> <BR><BR>Dhanushi
Senanayake<BR>Coordinator Publicity<BR>Practical Action<BR>05,Lionel Edirisinghe
Mawatha<BR>Kirulapone<BR>Colombo 05<BR>Sri Lanka<BR><BR>Tel:
00 94 11 2829412<BR>Fax: 00 94 11 2856188<BR>Web:
</FONT><A href="http://www.janathakshan.net"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>www.janathakshan.net</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>
<</FONT><A href="http://www.janathakshan.net/"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>http://www.janathakshan.net/</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>> </FONT><A href="http://www.practicalaction.org"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>www.practicalaction.org</FONT></A><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3> <</FONT><A
href="http://www.practicalaction.org/"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>http://www.practicalaction.org/</FONT></A><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>></FONT><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Verdana size=2></FONT> </DIV></BODY></HTML>