Barza Radio Community was a social networking website for African

radio broadcasters Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began wi ...

developed by

Farm Radio International Farm Radio International, or Radios Rurales Internationales (official French name), is a Canadian non-profit organization that was founded in 1979 by CBC Radio broadcaster George Atkins. The organization is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, wh ...

in conjunction with International Development Research Centre and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) to help them share scripts and other radio content with each other, and develop their broadcasting skills.

Background

started forming networks of broadcasters to share information and research back in the 1970s. Barza is a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

Congolese Congolese or Kongolese may refer to: African peoples * Congolese people (disambiguation) * Kongo people, a Bantu ethnic group who live along the Atlantic coast of Africa from Pointe-Noire (Republic of Congo) to Luanda, Angola, primarily defined by ...

word with

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

roots which means, “The place where people in a village meet under a tree to talk and sort out questions concerning the community.”

The Platform

The Barza website includes

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...

blogs A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

, comments, discussion forums, and content sharing features. Users can upload their own radio and farming related content, specifically radio scripts, events, photos, video, and audio. Resources are organised by topic, such as climate change, food processing and storage, water and sanitation, market information, broadcasting techniques, gender, malaria, HIV/AIDs, etc. There is also a

website for Barza. Broadcasters have their own profile page and there is a Barza Café discussions page where users can participate in various discussions.

References

{{reflist Canadian social networking websites