Moe Ma Ka Radio -2003 Year End Report

Moe Ma Ka Radio -2003 Year End Report

Organization Description

Introduction and Our mission

There are four major radio stations out of Burma such as BBC-Burmese, VOA-Burmese, DVB, and RFA-Burmese who are mainly transmitting to present the World and Burmese news to local audience in Burma.

However, since 1988, after the democracy uprising and under the rule of military government, a lot of Burmese people are being forced to leave their country and migrate to third world countries due to political, economical and social reasons.

Right now, there’s been a million of oversea Burmese living scatterly in foreign countries who are facing social, economical and educational difficulties and lack of proper information and knowledge concerning them and at the same time, the Burmese people living locally are also facing with such kind of problems under the misruling of military junta.

There’s a need of immediate attention to our Burmese to reorganize on the social and community ground to help sharing the news, information and knowledge concerning of current situation among them and at the same time to promote and preserve the historically rich culture and traditions of Burma.

The military regime is not only ignorant in helping the Burmese from this kind of chaos but also negligent as being as a government role to  protect & organize the Burmese community to become united and healthy. Instead, they use the technology and the media means as their propaganda tools to promote their misinformation and cover up the human right abuse.

Right now, the young generation of Burmese community are found to be less interested in the Burmese community & humanity issues. The media and the internet sites founded and encouraged by the military junta such as Myanmar.com, Myanmar TV3, Bagan Cyber Tech e-community are trying their best to persuade the young generation into the popular culture, yellow journalism oriented news and such other issues that would not benefit the solution to the social disorder now facing with the Burmese community.

Nowadays, the Internet becomes a common household of the society and most of the local and oversea Burmese are friendly with it. That is why we are going to use the Internet Radio Web casting to reach the audience especially to the young Burmese generation and be a helping hand to build our civil society for the future Democratic Burma. While being as an entertainment station to the Burmese community, we would be able to educate our young generation to be aware of the Burmese community & humanity issues and also encourage them to participate at their own capacity in preserving the value of nation, culture and to be a part of freedom loving Burmese citizens towards democratic Burma.

Statement of purpose and plan

In every country, we can observe that there’s so many different kinds of religions and races  living harmoniously. Especially for the Asian ethnic communities such as Thais, Cambodians, Chinese, Laos, Vietnamese and Philippines, we can clearly see that they have their own established communities who are helping each other and at the same time maintaining and promoting their languages and cultures and educating the settlers to be able to assimilate with the respective countries.

Until now, for our Burmese community, we do not have enough community and social service facility like other Asian ethnic communities. It is in deed a crucial role of our radio web casting station to present and promote the community and social awareness among the Burmese and to the country that they live in. It will be the gateway of our Burmese community to reorganize among each other and be recognized by the other communities.

Initially, we are going to implement the following objectives;-

1. To present the Burmese community news
2. To present Burmese arts and music
3. To share the opinions and experience of oversea Burmese and local Burmese
4. To educate new generation to learn the Burmese history and to love the Burmese traditions
5. To maintain and promote the national language, literature and culture
6. To present the children program consist of stories, songs, history and competition on Burmese literature
7. To present the woman programs
8. To present the programs on economics, environment, education and technology by forming the independent working group with oversea Burmese scholars to do the assigned program presentation
9. Interact with other Asian communities to share their news, information and knowledge
10. To prepare the program concerning on democracy and human rights
11. Prepare to work with other Burmese radio stations, Burmese communities and media groups (Sharing program and help to setup other media group and so on)
12. To open the information resource center for the Burmese community
13. Documentation of highlighted area of programs
14. Production of selected program for the public and private institutions
15. To practice the freedom of expression and to respect the difference among the Burmese and its community.
16. To help the Burmese to live harmoniously with different kinds of communities and to be recognized by them.

By doing so,

Plan of Action

The Current Situation

1^st Phase

Implementation :-

1. To setup the website for the radio station

2. To present community news

3. To present Burmese music and songs

4. To present Burmese literature and current features interest to Burmese community

The Program:-

1. 60 min duration per program

2. 1 time a week

4. 3 – 6 months

Personnel Activities:

1. Research, collect and present the news

2. Research, collect and present the music and songs

3. Design, present and update the content of the website

Planning and Management:-

1.      Train broadcasters

2.      Publicize the Programs

3.      Data collection of oversea Burmese artists and professionals

4.      Update the web content and Present the e-Gallery of  music and voices

5.      Preparing documentary video programs on oversea Burmese activities and situation of Burmese at the Burma’s border area.

Evaluation

1.      Website statistics

2.      Survey Form

3.      Correspondence

4.      Other Discussion Forum

5.      Invitation of free subscription from listeners

Time-Frame

It will start from Mar 2003 with the minimum requirement for the 1^st phase.

It will be concluded on end of Aug 2003.

Detailed Budget

-Line-item expenses (Minimum)

Current Status in Summary

• MoeMaKa.Com first officially launched on 15^th April 2003.
• It was first announced through the e-mail group such as RIT-Burma, Cal-Burma & Burma Today then later through Burma related web sites such as BCBG-Aust, MyWebDigest, BurmaToday, Mizzima, Maung (Mon Shwe Yee) and Kabyar.com.
• It was hit over 10,000 per day and got the free member registration of over 300 Burmese.
• It faced some technical problem due to internet server bandwidth and limited space.
• Due to limited budget, it was hard to get the current news and information from the local Burmese community but the audience response and support was far more positive than expected.
• The audience were found to be from both outside and inside Burma including government staff, scholars, oversea students, pro-democracy activists and workers.
• MoeMaKa presentation on news and music variety is highly accepted. The presentation on Burmese literature and current features are also appreciated.

Other Internet Contributions by MoeMaKa Team Leaders

MyWebDigest.Net, ( http://www.mywebdigest.net ) Myanmar Burmese web directory to share the news & information among Burmese community. It was started in Jan 2000 and now listed in Internet major search engine under the category – Guide & Directory.

 Burmese Magazine Digest, ( http://ezine.mywebdigest.net ) Collection of Burmese articles and works by Burmese authors and writers published from monthly magazines in Rangoon, Burma. It was later presenting works done by writers and artists staying out of Burma. It was started in Apr 2000 and also now listed in Internet major search engine under the category – News & Media.

My WebDiget News & Media Digest,  ( http://news.mywebdigest.net ) Selection and collection of news articles and reviews on Burma (Myanmar) and its people from various news sources and archiving under respective categories and issues. It was first started in Apr 2000 and later joined with BurmaToday in Jan 2003. It is now listed in Internet major search engine under the category – News & Media.

Notes: MoeMaKa is now first listed in the Internet major search engines such as Netscape and Open Directory Project in June 2003. .