On April 23, 2007, CMFD director Daniel Walter traveled to Vianna,
20km outside of Luanda, in Angola, to lead a three-day strategic planning and training workshop for about 25 staff members and volunteers of the recently re-launched independent radio station, Radio Despertar.

Currently, Radio Despertar is the only independent radio station operating in Angola. In order to ensure Radio Despertar can effectively transform itself into a private, independent, commercial broadcast medium for the community, German-based Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), is supporting the station through a planning and training process that aims to strengthen the station and establish a solid foundation before moving forward.

During the course of the workshop, participants identified the key strengths and weaknesses of the station as well as the threats and challenges they currently face. Radio Despertar will continue to benefit if capacity-building efforts are sustained, so further planning and training workshops are recommended. Still very much in its infancy, Radio Despertar has many challenges yet to overcome. But with a young staff intent on providing their community with a responsible independent broadcaster that seeks to promote social justice, a pluralism of ideas and viewpoints, universal values, and fair and balanced reporting while tackling issues important to all Angolans, the station—and community radio across Angola—will continue to improve.

About Radio Despertar
Radio Despertar formerly operated as Radio VORGAN, a propagandist mouthpiece for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which radically opposed Angola’s ruling communist party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the country’s lengthy civil war, which lasted from 1974 to 2002. In 1991, a tentative ceasefire agreement and peace accord was signed by UNITA and MPLA, which was supposed to end the war in Angola. As part of that agreement, Radio VORGAN was to transform its broadcasting mandate or discontinue its broadcast. The 1991 peace accord failed and war resumed, followed by other failed accords and attempts at peace. It wasn’t until April 1, 1998 that Radio VORGAN left the airwaves. As part of the peace process, it was agreed that Radio VORGAN would be transformed into a bipartisan radio station called Radio Awakening, or Radio Despertar in Portuguese. Radio Despertar waited for government approval to begin broadcasting for several years, until finally launching its signal earlier this year

The results was the first three segments in a current affairs programme focusing on human rights and social issues. The first three segments were about corruption, domestic violence and the rights of the elderly.