Max Graef (center, standing) with members of Community Radio Flambeau in Banka-Batang, Cameroon. (Photo courtesy Max Graef)

In 2004, DJ Max Graef founded RadioActive, and has since worked around the world to set up community radio stations. RadioActive, a social organisation providing technical equipment and support to groups both with and without funding around the world, has most recently worked in Cameroon to set up Community Radio Flambeau. Graef and his team have worked in places like Nepal, Mexico, Brazil, Cameroon and Palestine to both set-up stations and train people to run them.
Graef interned at Kirkegaard Associates in Chicago while studying acoustic design, and later joined their Science and Technology team. While at Kirkegaard, the Iraq War started and Graef decided to do something towards promoting positive change, believing he needed to take action rather than simply discussing issues.
He first worked with activists in Chicago to start Radio Populares, a group building community radio stations in Latin America. In 2004, he went to Palestine to build a station for the Ibdaa Cultural Centre, a youth centre in Dhesheh Refugee Camp, near Bethlehem . In 2005, RadioActive was officially born, although Graef considers their first project to have been in Palestine.
Today, RadioActive provides training, equipment, and technical services to communities around the world. The group also partners with NGO-funded radio start-ups. One arm of the organisation provides funding and support, while the other aims to provide support to groups with established funds with training, installation and equipment.

The Leader World recently spoke with Graef in London.

The Leader World: I’ve read that part of the reason you started doing this was that you liked bringing people together to give them music and a good time – since you’ve started RadioActive, how has that motivation evolved?

Graef: When I was djing I liked the idea of bringing people together to have a good time, to enjoy music. RadioActive (has a goal of) making people’s lives better, making a difference, making people feel less isolated. Music is a secondary (focus)…these stations are not about promoting music but more about what radio can do as a tool.

The Leader World: What kind of challenges did you face when starting up RadioActive?

Graef: It started in phases. At first it was just a Web site, so it wasn’t just me saying ‘hey, I want to do this.’ I started the Web site so it was a group representing what I was doing.
(The main challenge was) finding who to build radio stations for. It has to be in the right hands to do any good at all. A lot of people want to build a station, have the means and the manpower to build a station, and want to do good, but it’s important to establish whether they can…even if you want to do good, it’s not easy, certainly not to make it an effective tool.
Now groups get in touch with us directly. We’re in a good place with regards to having groups to support.

The Leader World: As you are giving a voice to marginalised and impoverished people, what kind of adversity, if any, do your projects face? Do you have any examples of incidents where the whole community was not happy with what you were doing?

Graef: Mainly a positive response. The only time I can think of was when we were in Mexico, in an area where one group was targeted and attacked by another. There was a massacre there; 3 people were killed, one was burnt alive in a car. The group who was attacked got in touch with a legal rights support group and said they wanted to organise a community station to respond to these attacks. It turned out the attackers had fled to the mountains surrounding the village. They saw us there and wrote to the local newspaper demanding the exit of these foreigners who were trying to build a radio station. We realised we didn’t know the full extent of the situation.

The Leader World: Does a situation like that make you feel like you shouldn’t continue?

Graef: It did occur to us that we didn't know the full story. We wanted to know the perspective of the people on the other side of the conflict.  However, those on the other side are armed and had very recently perpetrated a horrific massacre killing several of the villagers who had hired us to build their community radio station. This made it quite risky to approach them.
Where RadioActive provides funding for projects, we have to be careful to ensure it will go to places where it will do the most good. In Mexico a lot of the groups that we have worked with are made up of indigenous people fighting for their rights, such as Ucizoni, who use radio to promote human rights awareness and to discuss issues that affect them, such as women's rights, land conflicts and alcohol abuse.

The Leader World: Seeing the tremendous speed at which technology changes, especially somewhere like London, how challenging is it to stay focused on the basic formula you’ve established for setting up a radio station?

Graef: With the production side, the technological advances can be incorporated. Technology can be embraced. On the transmission side, low power FM is still the best way to reach people. Most people have a small radio, or can buy one, they’re not very expensive and accessible.
Digital is not happening yet in our world. It’s reassuring to know that this basic formula still works…it’s still the best solution. It’s also good because when people don’t want their tape recorder, we can use them - we have a stack of them. (We can use) anything, speakers, cd players.

The Leader World: As you have helped set up stations in some potentially volatile regions, is making certain communities more visible and active putting them at risk?

Graef: It’s important to note in that situation (Mexico) one community did not respond with violence. There was no fighting from one side. It was basically one side attacking another to intimidate them into leaving their land.
And in a place with no telephone, no network… if you get attacked how do you tell anyone?
It was pretty clear things were less likely to happen in town, it was in the mountains and the fields where things were going to happen.
In Palestine, Idbaa have a big centre…a lot going on. They didn’t want to start broadcasting without a license…they didn’t want to jeopardize what they had as it would be so easy for one Israeli shell to land on them (or to be targeted by) one of the groups working in the West Bank.
In those cases we work closely with local organisations so that they understand the risks…making sure they realise the impact on their place in the community. It’s a whole process…a serious undertaking.

The Leader World: When training and setting up new stations, how do you conquer language barriers?

Graef: It’s tough. You can’t really do much training with no shared language. We rely on the local organisations. For myself, I speak more slowly.
We worked through a translator in Madagascar - there was one person in the whole village who spoke French - we also worked through a translator in Nepal…it makes things slower.

The Leader World: Looking at your website and reading about your work, I get a tremendous sense of hope and well-being – are you able to describe the feelings you get from your work to me?

Graef: When it really works, it’s definitely the best feeling. On Banka there was a lot of training, and on the last evening we ran the first news programme…it was just great…at the end of it, everyone was just buzzing.
Installation is another thing…when transmission goes full power…it’s been a long series of little blessings at every stage, then you are one the air. It’s great when the lights go green.
It’s also nice when people show their appreciation, when they say what the station means to them. Donga means so much, and in a place where the next village has no power…where hardly anybody reads…it’s the way they know they’re not in the middle of nowhere. Without the station the whole town stops breathing.
When I started RadioActive, finding more out about power, finding more out about the abuse of power and how power works…it was around the time of the Iraq War, and I thought what the hell are we doing? What the hell is going on? – I was in Chicago and I thought ‘I want to be doing something different; I want to be doing something about the stuff I care about now’.
Now that I spend most of my time helping build community radio, my sense of outrage is so much smaller - you know that saying  ‘don’t get mad, get even’.

The Leader World: What do you hope to achieve in the next few years with RadioActive?

Graef: Realistically I think we’ll work in Brazil, Nepal, Kenya (RadioActive’s Radio Baraza partnership in that country is ongoing), South Africa and likely go back to Cameroon, around the country where people want radio and don’t have it.
Right now there is a big movement in India and there is a lack of groups there…we’re going to see if we‘ve got capacity to help there. There’s no lack of technical knowledge or experience, (but) not many groups like us…with a low-power basic set-up.
There are a lot of good groups out there wanting radio stations…(but) radio stations take time. We’re in no rush; it’s more about finding the right projects to work on.

To view details of RadioActive’s most recent project, Community Radio Flambeau visit Protegeqv at http://www.protegeqv.org/spip.php?page=sommaire-en

You can check out RadioActive online at http://www.radioactive.org.uk/