South African Community Radio Information Network (SACRIN)

As of 2006, there were 37 community radio stations sharing programming through the SACRIN Network. The stations are equipped with satellite receiver equipment, and programming is fed live to the stations from the SACRIN Hub on a dedicated digital satellite channel. The channel is rented from Sentech, South Africa's common carrier for broadcast signals. Stations simultaneously download the feeds from the satellite channel and air the feeds live for their audiences.

Much of the SACRIN programming uses a national live panel/talk-show/call-in format, with listeners from SACRIN stations all over the country calling in on a national toll-free number to comment and pose questions to the presenters and studio guests in the Johannesburg SACRIN Studios. The call-in feeds focus on a wide range of issues including: HIV/AIDS awareness, voter education, refugee rights, local education improvement, children's rights, the "African Renaissance," National Women's Day, the African Union, New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the annual opening of Parliament, human rights, anti-discrimination, and sustainable development. The call-ins are multilingual, allowing people from all over the country to pose their questions and receive answers in the language they feel most comfortable with.

The SACRIN satellite network also carries special national feeds, without a call-in element, from major national events. The national special feeds are produced, using Outside Broadcast (OB) mobile-studio equipment, by personnel from the NCRF national office and producers and presenters from local NCRF stations. Key stations working on recent national special feeds have been the stations in the Western Cape, Gauteng, the Free State, and the North-West.

The SACRIN project collaborates with other community radio stations in Africa and around the world to produce global community radio broadcasts on human rights, anti-racism/discrimination, and sustainable development. Using various satellite platforms including SACRIN, and using the internet, these broadcasts feed programming in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish to stations all across Africa and Latin America, and in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. These projects are collaborations with the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) under the banner of Radio Voix Sans Frontieres (RVSF) - Radio Voices Without Frontiers. For example, the RVSF's "Earth Radio" project at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg (Aug-Sept 2002), saw SACRIN producers collaborating with community radio broadcasters from all over the globe to broadcast 10 days of live programming. Other SACRIN international programming work has occurred on South Africa Human Rights Day (March 21) in 2000, 2001, and 2002, as well as from the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban in 2001.

Rights, Governance.