•Notícia

Raúl Fernández, a Telecommunications Engineering student at the College of Industrial Engineering of Terrassa (EUETIT) specializing in Sound and Image, has designed and installed a network of community radios in north-east Brazil. The work was carried out towards his final project, which was directed by Lluís Ferrer of the Department of Electronic Engineering and funded by the UPC-Barcelona Tech’s Centre for Development Cooperation (CCD) and the Social Welfare Office of Reus City Council. The signal covers three settlements of the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) in the states of Pernambuco and Ceará.

The three stations that make up the new network are Radio 25 de Maio FM, Lagoa do Mineiro FM and Radio Normandia, each broadcast from public premises in a local town: a farming cooperative in Madalena, a hermitage in Itarema, and the mansion of a former landowner in Caruaru. These spaces were specially adapted for the project and are also used as schools and cultural centers.

With the budget of €10,000 provided for the project, Raúl Fernández was able to purchase sound and studio equipment (microphones, mixing consoles, computers, receivers, etc.), construct the transmission system (transmitter, antennae, antenna towers) and adapt the studios. A range of local professionals contributed to the project, including builders, electricians, antenna tower technicians, journalists, lawyers and land workers, who were supervised by Raúl Fernández and received the necessary technical and communication training to produce and broadcast the programs offered over the network.

The sound quality of the network is equivalent to that of major commercial networks, although the priority is to produce quality content and to broadcast to as many listeners as possible. The network currently reaches around 250,000 people in the region.

The network broadcasts similar content to that of conventional radio stations, but there is a marked focus on indigenous culture and a range of specific programs dealing with the land ownership conflict that continues to divide Brazilian society. O show da reforma agraria ("The agrarian reform show") and Reforma agraria a debate ("Agrarian reform under debate") are two of the most popular with listeners.

One of the main aims of the network is "to act as a catalyst for agrarian reform and to condemn the violation of workers' rights, offering an alternative to the content broadcast by commercial radio stations, which reflects the interests of the landowners and multinationals that control them. We hope to achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth and to put rural land workers in a stronger position to claim their rights to education, healthcare and the sustainable development of the area," explains Raúl Fernández. "In Brazil, around 1% of the population controls 46% of the country's arable land, which leads to the exploitation of workers, who are forced to leave their homes in search of work", he explains.

The project, which received additional support from the NGO Grup de Cooperació del Campus de Terrassa (the Terrassa Campus Cooperation Group), aims to improve the organization and social cohesion of the diverse communities that make up the MST settlements.