On the Air: Updates from PCI-Media Impact

As the year draws to a close, we want to take a moment to thank all of our supporters.  During the past year, we have enjoyed your partnership as we have developed programs on four continents, welcomed new team members, and celebrated exciting initiatives born from the creativity and dedication of our partners, like you, around the globe.  In 2011 we:

• Reached audiences in 28 countries with our programs.

• Trained more than 600 people around the world how to use communication tools to improve their lives and communities. 

• Produced a new television soap opera, Mucho Corazón. This program builds on our successful radio program, Corazón de Mujer, to empower women to exercise their rights and end gender-based violence in Chiapas, Mexico.

• Launched Callaloo, a regional radio drama that addresses climate change, biodiversity conservation and health in 15 Caribbean countries.  The drama went on the air across the region in September and will continue airing new episodes twice a week for the next two years. 

• Expanded our My School-My Community program.  This classroom-based program engages youth in the decision making process at school, and encourages youth to take ownership of their learning environment.  The program is now active in four schools in New York City, two in St. Lucia and one in Mexico.  

We are also taking this time to look toward the future.  With programs confirmed in more than 25 countries at the start of 2012 and many more in development, we look forward to bringing some drama to a station near you in the New Year.   We are especially excited to:

• Launch a new initiative, Mobilize4Africa, which combines cell phone technology and Entertainment-Education to stop the devastating levels of violence against women in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  At least 70% of Liberian women have been victims of sexual violence.  The DRC has experienced a 17-fold increase in violence against women during the past decade. 

• Partner with USAID to bring critical information about sanitation and water resource management to several communities in Peru, a country that struggles to bring a safe, secure supply of water to all of its citizens.  Currently, 8 million of 28 million Peruvians do not have access to piped water. 

• Use Entertainment-Education radio programs to end gender-based violence in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.  As many as 40% of women in the region have experienced some form of violence at the hands of their spouses or boyfriends.

• Collaborate with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and several local partners to broadcast programs that promote habitat conservation for the last 250 Cross River gorillas in Nigeria and Cameroon, endangered chimpanzees in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda, and the near-extinct Indochinese tigers in Laos.

We hope you are as excited as we are about these new initiatives and that you will continue to support our work as we grow.  Click on the links to the right to follow us on social media or contribute to our programs, recommend our organization on pages like greatnonprofits.org and guidestar.org, and tell your friends about our work.  Being our champion is the greatest gift you could give this holiday season.  

  Happy Holidays from the PCI-Media Impact Team!     About PCI-Media Impact
PCI-Media Impact (Media Impact) empowers communities worldwide to inspire enduring change through creative storytelling. Media Impact is a leader in Entertainment- Education and social change communications. For 25 years, we have worked with local partners to produce programs that address the most pressing social and environmental issues. Using our unique My Community approach to social change communications, we engage and empower audiences around the world to improve their own lives. Working with local partners, we have produced more than 3,000 episodes of 100 TV and radio productions. Together, these programs have reached more than 1 billion people in 34 countries.   PCI19555