Aid starts to pour in for Alex FM and other looted stations

Help is on the horizon for community radio station Alex FM, a victim of the recent spate of widespread looting and destruction of property in Alexandra.

The station was temporally taken off air when its broadcast equipment and related items worth more than
R5 million was looted and other equipment vandalised. It only came back on air a day later when a friendly station, LM Radio in the affluent neighbourhood of Sandton, came to its rescue and allowed it to perch on its network to get back on air.

In a bid to save this and other radio stations that were affected by the recent mayhem, Melville-based Dilepa Marketing and Communications has pledged R50 000 toward the ‘Save Our Community Radios’ and initiated a trust fund to raise money to rebuild the three affected radio stations in Gauteng and one in KwaZulu-Natal.

Dilepa Marketing and Communications managing director Pat Phore said, “It is in the interest of all of us and our democracy that these institutions which serve as voices of their respective communities were rebuilt and revitalised to allow them to continue to serve their communities as they have done.”

Besides Alex FM in Johannesburg’s Alexandra Township, other radio stations that were looted and silenced in the process are Mams Radio, and Westside FM in Gauteng and Intokozo FM, the sole vandalised station in KwaZulu-Natal in the two provinces that were affected by the looting.

Phore said community radio stations offer a different model of radio broadcasting which was beyond the spheres of commercial and public services as they tackle specific community issues that affect that particular community to whom they are broadcasting from and on behalf of.

“These community radio stations are also a vehicle for partnerships with the community and voluntary sector, including civil society, agencies, NGOs, and citizens to promote community development and social and racial cohesion,” Phore added.

In addition to the R50 000 and the trust fund account that Dilepa has opened, Phore said his media and marketing company would be lending its outside broadcasting vans for use by the affected radio stations to broadcast from while continuing with its fundraising efforts to help the stations get back on their feet and maximise on the advertising revenue they were making.

Details: Pat Phore 078 472 9973; pat.phore@dilepamarketing.co.za