11 March

Community Access radio station Community Radio Hamilton has coordinated a project that is delivering essential quake recovery information across the country in multiple languages.

Drawing on volunteers, Community Radio Hamilton, Fresh FM [Nelson], Access Manawatu [Palmerston North], Arrow FM [Masterton] and Taranaki Access Radio [New Plymouth] have taken five key messages provided by the Office of Ethnic Affairs and translated and recorded them into Spanish, Fijian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Tamil, Japanese, Tagalog, Russian, and German with a number of extra languages being added over the next few days.

“Access Radio is at the heart of many migrant communities, and this project has certainly allowed us to play to our strengths”, says Community Radio Hamilton’s general manager Phil Grey. “Our Christchurch colleagues Plains FM have sadly been unable to play what we know would have been a huge part in the recovery so far, but if we can help get these messages to those in need, in their own first language, we’ve succeeded”.

The audio clips are all made available across the country and while mainly intended for Christchurch broadcasters to download and rebroadcast across the city, they’re freely available to anyone to download and share.

The audio clips are available at www.accessradio.org

ENDS

© Scoop Media