Press Releases

Youth-run Radio Station to Launch in Jordan

Mais Obeidat /Internews Internews is launching a new community radio station in Amman, Jordan that will be focused on youth and women.

(May 19, 2008) Jordanian youth as young as ten years old will have the opportunity to contribute to a new community radio station focused on youth and women that Internews Network is launching at the Princess Basma Youth Center (PBYC) in Amman.

Construction has started on the station, called Radio Farah Al Nas (Joy of the People), and a successful test broadcast took place May 8. The station will open officially this summer, broadcasting at 98.5 FM and serving the greater Amman area and neighboring Zarka in the first phase of the project.

“I am very enthusiastic about working with the youth at PBYC and training them on becoming radio professionals, committed to promoting change for their communities and country through transparent reporting and unbiased news coverage,” said Haitham Atoom, the station manager for Radio Farah Al Nas. “The station will change the lives of many and will create a new concept of radio journalism in this modest area of the city.”

Funded by a grant from the US Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Internews will train and support young people ages 10 to 24 to operate the radio station. The young journalists will learn the technical and journalistic skills needed to operate a community radio station.

Internews is establishing the station together with the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development (JOHUD) in collaboration with Western Kentucky University on technical and equipment purchase. The station builds on an existing partnership between Internews, JOHUD, and WKU which established AutoStrad, a youth radio production unit, at PBYRC in 2006. Young trainees have gained real-life experience producing programming at the Autostrad studio, and their programs have aired on Jordanian radio stations.

“Radio Farah Al Nas will focus on development issues that directly affect Jordanians, in particular youth and women,” says JOHUD’s Deputy Executive Director, Eman Nimri. “By serving as an entryway through which issues can be brought to light to the general public and decision-makers, Farah Al Nas will encourage suitable solutions to be reached.”

As soon as construction on the station started, volunteers at the center gathered and asked questions about the equipment and the broadcast process. People from surrounding neighborhood also began asking questions about the new tower and antennas and plans for this new community radio station, the first of its kind in this lower-income area of Amman. 

Considering the friendliness of the residents of this area, the station manager, Haitham Atoom says, “I am expecting them to knock at our doors to tell their stories and talk about their problems.”  He is confident that their stories will be relayed on the station’s airwaves.

The PBYRC volunteers have also started asking if they can participate in programs, request songs, or even play music and sing on the air. The station staff hope that, in a few years, their ranks will include many of these volunteers, and even that some of the children from PBYRC’s kindergarten will become famous journalists and DJs.

In 2006 Internews also launched Yarmouk FM, Jordan’s first community-based radio station, in partnership with Western Kentucky University and based at Yarmouk University in Irbid, The Autostrad and YFM projects are also funded under the grant to Internews from DRL.