No road leads to Motuo County. There is no post office or newspaper. But, for the 10,000 residents of one of the planet’s remotest corners, a local radio station serves as the vital link to the outside world.
"Welcome to Krishi (farming) Radio. You are listening to FM 98.8 megahertz and I am your hostess Shahnaz Parvin," the local community radio crackles over the mobile phones and transistors of residents in coastal Barguna district.
It was the decade-long civil war in the autonomous Bougainville region that inspired the founding of New Dawn FM, a community radio station recognised for contributing to the rebirth of civil society and development.
Fisher Wanka Masani, 25, has been inseparable from his two- dollar transistor ever since a community radio (CR) station started up in this coastal town. The square black box blares popular songs while Masani waits for his brothers to land the daily catch.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues have generally been ignored in the Philippines, or worse, negatively portrayed to spice up mainstream media programmes.
"I want my own computer so that I can talk to my cousins who live in Italy," says eight-year-old Camila Ojeda, sitting in front of a computer monitor on a bus that acts as a mobile cybercafé in the Paraguayan capital.
When a financial crisis threatened the existence of Africa’s oldest community station, Bush Radio, an outpouring of sympathy and appeals went viral on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. However, despite this outspoken support that showed that the station is worth saving, its future remains uncertain.
There is a tension resonating through Ghana’s airwaves, an electric current fueled by rivaling interests between community radio advocates and Ghana’s National Communications Authority.
Radio Mega FM’s transmission tower rises from the centre of Gulu town, transmitting talk shows and the latest Ugandan radio hits to listeners across the district. But it also serves as something of an informal memorial to community radio-driven peace efforts during the Lord’s Resistance Army’s destruction of northern Uganda.
Community radio stations in Brazil are finding the internet and user-friendly information technologies to be valuable allies for their broadcasts, which focus on citizenship, social equity and human rights.