Project
Empowering people through citizens’ journalism in Albania
- Albania
- October 2011
Empowering people through citizens’ journalism in Albania sought to strengthen the outreach of CSOs representing socially vulnerable groups to the community through citizen journalism by 1) equipping CSOs with public communication skills, 2) establishing a community radio station and a web portal at Tirana University, and 3) training students to report on socially relevant topics. The project was unable to establish the on-air radio but continued some training components at the University of Tirana. Activities were also extended to the University of Elbasan which had an existing campus radio station and a dean interested in community radio and citizen journalism. The project created an internet portal called “YouRadio” that it based in the IRIOM project office where it could record and upload its programming. It also branched out to broadcast each programme on a national FM radio station run by Ora, through paid airtime at a regular time each week. Towards the end of the project, it also found the private Marlin Barleti University in Tirana interested in establishing a campus radio station and provided the project equipment to its communications department.
Lessons from Project
Some CSOs also felt their opportunities to benefit from the skills training beyond the participation of their student volunteers was limited which affected relevance for their organization. The training reached the student volunteers, but not in most cases to the organization, and any benefits accrued in terms of strengthening was with the individual students rather than the CSO.
The project was unable to establish the on-air radio but continued some training components at the University of Tirana, Albania. For similar projects in the future, the evaluators recommend that the formal agreements with the universities and for licensing be done before the project is submitted for funding.
Outside of a few main service contracts, most of the supervision, reporting and contracting was informal. This resulted in the project not having readily available information on its activities, outputs, contracting or expenditures, and its financial and programmatic reports were not submitted to UNDEF in a timely manner. This delayed release of the second tranche of project funding, pushing back activities and requiring a time extension to complete the project in Albania.
Outside of a few main service contracts, most of the supervision, reporting and contracting was informal. This resulted in the project not having readily available information on its activities, outputs, contracting or expenditures, and its financial and programmatic reports were not submitted to UNDEF in a timely manner. This delayed release of the second tranche of project funding, pushing back activities and requiring a time extension to complete the project in Albania.
The project did not develop synergies with other efforts in the sector, which included another UNDEF-funded media project and a youth radio funded by other donors in Albania. It had training programmes on investigatory journalism and professional standards, and produced broadcasts on issues of community and national importance with which this project could have linked to exchange programming and training opportunities. There was also Radio Aktive, an independent radio funded by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Foundation run by the NGO Mjaff. It was intended to provide citizens a voice and raise awareness on civic and social issues. It aired daily reports from youth, including journalism students from the University of Tirana who served as reporters. It also created an online radio portal “Radiostation.”16 UNICEF also funded “Speak Out” (TROC) which supported younger students in Albania to produce a weekly show broadcast on the national public TV station. It trained youth in reporting and supplied technical equipment to 11 bureaus across Albania. They produced 150 reports giving the youth perspective on a broad range of issues.
Although risks were accurately identified, there was no alternative strategy developed as a fall back, specifically regarding the continued participation of the University of Tirana as an implementing partner and the ability to obtain a broadcast license for a campus station. As these were the basis for the project, the implementation plan needed to be reworked and new partners found well after the project had started. But the campus radio at Elbasan was not used as the hub for the project and project efforts were then split between Tirana and Elbasan and the YouRadio web portal equipment placed in the IRIOM office.
The University of Elbasan thought association with the project helped increase the value of their communications programme as it provided activities for students that they could not afford on the school’s budget. This gave their school an edge over other universities which they said already attracted students from all over Albania in addition to students from the region (such as Kosovo and Montenegro). The Marlin Barleti University hopes that being the recipient of the project radio equipment and YouRadio portal will do the same for it. Both universities spoke of incorporating aspects of the project’s training manual and on community radio into their communications curriculum. If this is done, then the principles expressed in the training will be replicated in classes to come.
The project objectives and activities were relevant given the difficulties of youth and civil society organizations in Albania to access the media, voice their opinion or raise social issues. Although the Albanian media is free, mainstream media requires payment for airtime that NGOs cannot afford, and it has shown a general lack of interest in covering social issues as part of the news. Organizations were extremely interested in obtaining access to media, especially if it was free of charge and could reach a national audience as was intended with the university radio in Tirana. Participating youth were interested in citizen journalism and reporting on social issues.