- Barza Wire - https://wire.farmradio.fm -

Introducing Barza, the online community for radio broadcasters

We are delighted to announce the launch of Barza (www.barzaradio.com [1]) – the online community for radio broadcasters!

On Barza, you will have your own profile page to upload audio, scripts, photos, events and video. There is a Discussions page where you can participate in various discussions such as the introduction forum, the climate change adaptation forum and the broadcasting tips forum. On the Resources page, you will find audio, text and video resources on topics ranging from climate change adaptation to equipment for recording programs. Radio stations can have their own page where they can highlight the work they do.

Why is the site called Barza?

Farm Radio International surveyed around 1000 Farm Radio Weekly subscribers and broadcasting partners, asking them to suggest names for the online community. We chose six of the best and asked the 1000 subscribers and broadcasting partners to choose between them. Barza was the winner! Barza is a French Congolese word with Kiswahili roots which means, “The place where people in a village meet under a tree to talk and sort out questions concerning the community.”

Please join Barza!

You can join Barza by going to: http://www.barzaradio.com/account/register [2].

As you create your account and set up your profile, make sure you fill out the form thoroughly and upload a picture of yourself!

Once that’s done, we invite you to go to the Discussions page: http://www.barzaradio.com/forum [3]. There, in the Welcome forums, you can introduce yourself and then join the icebreaker activity with other Barza community members.

We invite you to explore the site. If you have any questions about the different tools and features, don’t hesitate to post a message in the technical support forum on the Discussions page http://www.barzaradio.com/forum [3].

Also, if you are a Facebook user, we encourage you to “like” the Barza Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Barza/136418766438517 [4]

Please send all comments and suggestions to barza@farmradio.org [5].

We would like to thank the International Development Research Center as well as the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) for supporting this initiative. We would also like to thank Digital4Good, a web development company based in Cape Town, South Africa, who worked with the Farm Radio International team to develop Barza.

We look forward to interacting with you on Barza.

-The Barza team

Nelly Bassily, Oge Ogbechie, Busi Ngcebetsha, Blythe McKay, Bartholomew Sullivan, and Mark Leclair