Europhonica

Europhonica

Name of the organization: RadUni
Website: raduni.org

Brief description of the organization

RadUni is a network of hundreds of active university radio stations representing different universities all across Italy.

Problem addressed by the good practice

The good practice aims at Developing young people’s understanding of European values and raising their awareness of issues such as citizenship, immigration, cultural diversity, etc.

Target groups

The target group includes young people who speak Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and German – as currently, the radio is available only in these languages.

Summary of the good practice

Europhonica is a network of roughly one hundred university radio stations representing several European countries, created on 1 September 2015. It gives a voice to the independent student and university media. The editorial team is composed of young people from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Germany and broadcasts monthly from the European Parliament during the Parliament’s plenary sessions in Strasbourg. Through interviews with MEPs, interviews, and news reports, the editors cover topics relating to current affairs, the idea of national sovereignty in the European context, young people in front of 21st Century Europe, multicultural Europe, etc. Not only does the project increase the visibility of young people’s ideas, European values, and cultures, but it also encourages the emergence of new university media practices through knowledge exchange and promotes the adoption of university media, and the radio medium in particular, as a cultural, educational and training tool for young people. All the content produced by the editors is widely available online as well as on an official multilingual platform of the network.

Evaluation

Europhonica is an interesting example of citizen journalism at an international level which allows young people from different countries to learn from each other and adopt best practices from participating countries. As radio’s discussions are focused on current European issues and challenges, it plays a crucial role in raising cultural, social and political awareness of young people in Europe.

Recommendations

Youth-led network of radio stations can be adopted as a good practice at a local level. Community radio helps young people get their voices heard and grow their critical thinking and civic participation from being just passive listeners to taking more active roles. It also develops social and cultural competencies in listeners through increased community awareness, as well as employability skills, such as media and digital literacy.

Resources

More information is available on the Europhonica platform.

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