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One Station Becomes a Family

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One Station Becomes a Family

Otavalo's success gave other Bahá'í National Spiritual Assemblies a model to follow rather than a single station to relay. Bolivia launched its own Radio Bahá'í in 1984, followed by Panama in 1985, broadcasting to the Guaymí, or Ngäbere, people from Boca del Monte, and by Chile and Peru in 1986. Chile Bahá'í Radio, based in Labranza, took up a mission close to Ecuador's own: preserving and promoting Mapuche language and culture through a station run by and for the community it served. Further stations followed outside Latin America, including Radyo Bahá'í serving Central Luzon in the Philippines and WLGI, 90.9 FM, broadcasting from Hemingway, South Carolina in the United States.

None of these stations relay a central signal. Each is independently licensed and locally staffed, sharing the Radio Bahá'í name, the community radio model and the underlying purpose Otavalo set in 1977, rather than sharing a transmitter or a programming feed. That structure proved its value during the COVID-19 pandemic, when stations across the network, still each responding to its own community, shifted quickly to carrying educational content for shuttered schools, devotional programming and a source of connection for listeners cut off from ordinary gathering, work the Bahá'í international community's own news service documented station by station rather than as a single broadcast event.

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Radio (Bahaipedia)
BahaipediaView the Source
Bahá'í Radio, Stations Invite Participation, Connect People During Pandemic (Bahá'í World News Service)
Bahá'í World News ServiceView the Source
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