Six teachers and some twenty students at ESSA Ruhengeri Public High School, located in the city of Musanze, Rwanda, are receiving training this summer to consolidate an informative radio project at their educational institution.

This initiative, coordinated by the UMH Headquarters in Rwanda Chair and the Area of International Development Cooperation in Rwanda, both parts of the Vice Rectorate for International Relations, is being rolled out thanks to funding from the UMH Board of Trustees. Collaborators in the project include Radio UMH, Bachelor’s in Journalism students and some of its alumni, in addition to students from the Master’s in Innovation in Journalism program. The summer training sessions are being provided by these student participants in the UMH Volunteerism program.  

The school radio project began in February through the “Educational Communication Strategy in Nemba (Rwanda): Radio as a Means for Development” research project, funded by a call for UMH grants for international university cooperation activities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

This call is part of the actions established in a 2017 agreement for university cooperation between the UMH and the Generalitat Valenciana. In the aforementioned project, UMH associate professor, José Luis González, and Lis Gaibar, a member of the investigative team, completed a stay in Rwanda to learn of the radio listening habits in that country’s population, the training levels of its communication professionals, and the operations at the University of Rwanda Radio Station. During their stay, they examined the suitability of setting up a community radio station as a means for transmitting knowledge and empowering the community. Beni Abayisenga, a Rwandan journalist at Radio Musanze, is also collaborating in the training sessions.