Community Radio Will 'Amplify Hope'

Community Radio Will 'Amplify Hope'
By Kathy Noble, editor, Interpreter and Interpreter Online

"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom He favors!"
The centuries-old proclamation will gain a new channel on Christmas Eve when Radio Methos signs on at 101.6 FM in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Licensed to The United Methodist Church there, the new station will air inspirational and informational programs that will reach people throughout the country.
United Methodists worldwide will echo the angels' message during the station's first week. "Amplify Hope" is the campaign to solicit the short, pre-recorded greetings -- and to raise funds for the station.
United Methodist Communications, the Texas Annual Conference and Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio, are partnering with United Methodists in Cote d'Ivoire to launch Radio Methos and operate it for the first year. Fund raising will help sustain it for the next two to five years. Operations will cost about $200,000 a year.
"Amplify Hope" will also provide solar-powered, hand-crank radios to people who are too poor to buy a conventional radio or who live in rural areas without electricity.
Radio Methos will be community radio, explains the Rev. Larry Hollon, general secretary of United Methodist Communications. It will play "a significant role in bringing life-enhancing content to people who are often not served by other forms of media, because they are too remote or too poor to be a desirable audience for commercial broadcasters."
Messages of peace and reconciliation will be aired during the station's launch and be a vital part of the programming as the country recovers from civil war.
The programming will mix what the Cote d'Ivorians call "confessional radio" with education and information about health issues, agriculture, economic development, pending disasters and other topics.
"Radio can help with many things," said Robert Beugre Mambe, a United Methodist who oversees the country's national elections, to United Methodist News Service's Tim Tanton last year. "It can help people to live in peace, to love God. People who love God will also love their neighbors."
Otofa Hypolithe, lay leader at Nazareth United Methodist Church in Abidjan, told Tanton, "Whenever we preach the word of God to these people, we help them have the spirit of love in their mind, and that is very crucial for the peace process in this country."
As Radio Methos allows people to tell their own stories, "we are partnering with them in empowerment and in personal and community development," says Hollon. "That's why supporting community radio is so urgent and so important."