"I've been at it a while," said Awa Ouedraogo. "I'm just now testing the recording function."
Just a moment ago in a workshop, a media trainer was explaining to her the functionality of the new Colmena app. Ouedraogo is a journalist at one of the best known online radio outlets in Burkina Faso, Radio Vénégré, which is one of 23 community radio broadcasters, local media outlets and media organizations from 13 countries in Africa and Latin America that developed the app.
The app Colmena is now ready to go. The beta version was launched on April 28, 2022
Colmena – Spanish for beehive – is a digital toolbox for community radio stations and local media. DW Akademie and its Mexican partner organization REDES A.C. developed the software so that community media could reliably continue to reach their audiences – in times of crisis and beyond. The project is part of the DW Akademie and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development initiative "Transparency and Media Freedom – Crisis Resilience in the Pandemic".
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Strong together: Pod´Da-lhe, Brazil
The Brazilian collective Jovem Tapajônico’s podcast initiative Pod’Da-lhe focuses on rainforest preservation. They use Colmena’s audio recording tool for interviews with women and indigenous youth so that the river communities can reflect on their societies. At the same time, the content can be shared with other community media in the blink of an eye.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Investigative, diverse, feminist: Muy Waso, Bolivia
Muy Waso is the first online magazine of its kind in Bolivia, reaching a broad audience across borders with its reports and podcasts. Colmena combines the necessary steps to do this: pulling articles together, recording audio and processing as a team. This also enables broad participation and diversity in the production process. For co-founder Michelle Nogales, this is "journalism’s future."
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
A voice for everyone: La Voix du Paysan, Burkina Faso
The community radio La Voix du Paysan is more than just "a voice for farmers." It's a central gathering place for regional information. The program centers on what is important to the rural population. Colmena enables expanding the range of topics even more: the station uses the app for exchanging material and mutual production with its partner station Radio Vénégré.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Programs for young and old: Radio Vénégré, Burkina Faso
In Burkina Faso, even the village chief (seated) has become a radio producer. "We all work on the shows at Radio Vénégré," says program director Awa Ouedraogo. Editing has been too complicated, she says, so developing an editing program for cell phones was really important. With Colmena, she can now share interview excerpts more effectively via the mobile Internet.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Against forgetting: Unión de Mujeres Aymaras del Abya Yala (UMA), Peru
"We want to preserve our language," says Yeny Paucar. The women living in the Aymara community have been learning how to use new communication technology for 34 years so as to share their culture far and wide. Radio plays an important role. Paucar and her colleagues use Colmena to record their stories in their language, editing and sharing the content using a simple cellphone.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Church radio for everyone: Radio Amani, Kenya
The Catholic community radio station Radio Amani wants to be there for everyone in Nakuru County, and also to mirror its diversity. The opinions voiced in the programming are just as diverse as the music. As part of the Colmena network, the radio producers can access a databank of license free music which is implemented and managed by the users.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Radio like a bouquet: Pwani FM, Kenya
Pwani FM has it all: from youth radio to classic news programming to live Bango music shows. The diversity is limitless, not unlike Colmena’s features, which the team use for production and communication. With easy use in the Kiswahili language, the moderators Ken1GB and Gates Mgenge are able to finalize things quickly.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Local language on the World Wide Web: Radio Ada, Ghana
Every day, Olivia Serwa Waree from Radio Ada in Ghana translates international news to the local language, Dangme. "I especially want to meet the needs of women from the communities," she says. She uses the Colmena toolbox to put content on social media platforms.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Always on site and close to the people: Radio Nefzawa, Tunisia
Radio Nefzawa broadcasts out of Kebili, a remote region in Tunisia, and is also experimenting with video formats. The demand for independent information is big. In order to collaborate with community reporters, they use Colmena. The automatic upload via the cloud server makes it easy to share their stories from the rural outskirts directly with the station.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Open to the world and new channels: Radio Sayaxché, Guatemala
The local station Radio Sayaxché is very interested in exchanging programs with community media from other regions and countries and trying out new formats on different channels. Colmena enables the radio's staff to broadcast content independently, as well as to share that with team members and to work more easily together – and this despite weak internet connections in the Amazon region.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Impulses within and outward: Radio Rahma, Kenya
Radio Rahma broadcasts live out of Mombasa and provides the region with current podcasts. Colmena supports the team in its work, allowing them to exchange knowledge and ideas, and not just internally, but rather with other radio stations, too. Colmena increases the possibilities for the station to connect within and outside the region, and the digital cooperation leads to new impulses.
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A glance in the beehive: How community media in Latin America and Africa work with the Colmena app
Unheard stories: Podpreta, Brazil
In northern Brazil, Rejane and her colleagues Quezia, Lica and Janna record podcasts. As Podpreta, they use Colmena as a production tool. It helps them to better coordinate and to be able to work virtually. With the audio recording tool, they give a voice to Black women in the Amazon region and report on their little known realities of life.
When everything's down, Colmena works
Nationwide lockdowns and individual quarantines were both showstoppers for media producers, whether a radio station or a small, local media outlet. The pandemic made one thing clear: there has to be an inclusive solution that enables community reporters and local news staff to stay in contact digitally so that they can continue to produce news coverage.
"It was important to develop an app that combines every tool, from recording to editing to finalizing a story," explained Adriana Veloso, who supervises the development team for Colmena's user design. She's especially pleased that the members of the software's target group itself were involved in the app's development.
"The development team was in Brazil, but in fact ideas and test reports came out of Mexico, Morocco and Kenya. That's important for high acceptance for future use," she added.
Women in focus: Journalist Michelle Nogales uses Colmena to produce her stories for the Bolivian online magazine Muy Waso
Colmena is now ready to go. The beta version was launched on April 28, and is expected to grow this year with cooperative productions and the testing of new features. Though Colmena was originally designed to address the negative repercussions of the Coronavirus pandemic and to help local media become more digitally independent, the plan is to make the app more flexible and to expand its use for future crises.
"Software is successful if it remains an open process, a constant dialogue," emphasized Peter Bloom of the nongovernmental organization Rhizomatica, which consulted on the project development. "It has less to do with a finished product as opposed to developing a practical solution that can be adapted according to feedback from the community."
Open, secure, no fee
Colmena was developed for various end devices. It functions offline, is secure and free of charge. It is currently available in six languages: Arabic, English, French, Kiswahili, Portuguese and Spanish. The menus, handbooks and explanatory videos, can also be translated into other languages if need be. Colmena is 100 percent open source and is also open to everyone who would like to be involved with its ongoing development.
Pwani FM from Kenya use Colmena in Kiswahili language. The app is currently also available in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish
"How it will look exactly depends on how the launch goes," said Santiago García from DW Akademie who manages communication between the developers and the media participants. "We're hoping for a lively community. However, it is not just about creating together, but also about early adopters sharing their knowledge with new users."
Awa Ouedraogo and her colleagues at Radio Vénégré have taken on this role, assisting their partner station, Community-Radio La Voix de Paysant, through the first steps of using Colmena. They've already produced a few radio segments which can be heard on the project's website. After the development team fixed a bug, it's now easier to log in.
"Bonjour chers collègues," wrote Ouedraogo in the app's digital editing group chat, marking the beginning of a new and productive exchange.
This project is part of the global initiative "Transparency and media freedom – Crisis resilience in the pandemic", launched by DW Akademie and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The open-source software Colmena was developed in cooperation with local and community media organizations in Latin America and Africa. Learn more here.