Radio Content
In November 2013 I started an internship at Agência do Rádio Brasileiro, in Brasília, a radio news agency with national reach. I started by following up on the articles that were produced, forwarding them to partner radio stations, checking approval of the news, contacting new radio stations to expand the agency's reach and updating the mailing list.
Soon I started forecasting the weather and after a short period I moved to the newsroom as a reporter and announcer, doing interviews, writing articles and narrating news.
Below is some of the content I produced during the period.
BRAZILIAN RADIO AGENCY
BIRTH CERTIFICATE: Federal Government launches leaflet on the Civil Registration of Birth of People 06/05/2014
Audio time - 3min1seg
LOC/REPORTER: In an attempt to end the sub-registry, as it’s called the situation of children not registered the year they are born or the three first months of the following year, the Federal Government released at the end of the month of April a leaflet about the Civil Registry of Birth of Indigenous Peoples. Data from the Civil Registry Statistics of IBGE indicates that there are approximately 600 thousand children in this situation, and more than half of them are indigenous. The Communications Coordinator of the Hutukara Yanomami Association of Roraima, Morsaniel Yanomami, highlights that besides the issue of the distance between the notary office and the place where these indigenous people live, there is also a cultural problem. According to IBGE, Brazil currently has 305 indigenous ethnic groups, and some of them, like the Yanomami, have the custom of naming the child only after they turn four years old.
TEC/SOUND: Communications Coordinator – Morsaniel Yanomami
“Because we, Yanomami custom, don’t name early, just like a year and six months, we name above five, four years. My daughter, I don’t know if I will register. Here in the city they need a document for the indigenous people, that’s why some Yanomami are registering, only most of them aren’t. I’m registering my woman, wife, because she is going to work as a Yanomami researcher to research Yanomami customs.”
LOC/REPORTER: To the Minister of Human Rights, Ideli Salvatti, the Civil Registry of Birth, which is free, is important because it guarantees benefits that every Brazilian citizen has the right to, since getting your I.D. to opening a bank account or enrolling in programs of land reform.
TEC/SOUND: Minister of Human Rights – Ideli Salvatti
“We have, over the years, been working hard to eradicate the lack of registry of births of children, the famous birth certificate, without which no one is recognized for nothing. In other words, people who do not have birth certificates, they cannot access any benefits, nothing. They can enroll at school, but, see, after the issuing of the diploma, see, everything gets impaired. And that’s why it’s so important that we eradicate it.”
LOC/REPORTER: Data from the 2010 Census of the IBGE shows that only 67,8% of indigenous people are registered at the notary office. Between the actions taken to end the sub-registry, besides the leaflet, the government has been doing campaigns and seminars about the accessibility and opening notaries at maternities to avoid the children leaving without being registered. The leaflet is going to be distributed at the beginning of the month of May. More information is available on the website of the Human Rights' Secretary, www.sdh.gov.br.
Article by Erica Pierre
ECONOMY: New Social Progress Index ranks Brazil 46th in a list of 132 countries 05/04/2014
Audio time: 3min16sec
LOC/REPORTER: The Social Progress Index, the IPS, ranked Brazil at number 46 out of a list of 132 countries. This indicator created by the non-profit organization, Social Progress Imperative, analyzes aspects of sustainability, sanitation, health, access to education, access to information, personal security, tolerance and housing. According to the organization's official website, access to education rates, for example, are examined according to aspects such as the illiteracy rate among adults and the number of children enrolled in school. For economist Roberto Piscitelli, this new value shows the importance that social aspects have in the development of a country.
TEC/SOUND: Economist – Roberto Piscitelli
"What is important for us to highlight in this regard is the fact that many scholars, many specialists, have been seeking to find new indicators beyond traditional GDP, beyond per capita income. Seeking to capture much broader, much more complete dimensions, so to speak, of people's living conditions. That is, the indicators traditionally used, publicized, the indicators that give an exclusive or predominant emphasis to income itself. Even the HDI, which today has become better known, is still limited, it already considers some other indicators in the area of education and health, but is still limited in relation to others that have been developed and are beginning to be released"
LOC/REPORTER: The executive director of the organization responsible for the survey, Michael Green, states that this study shows that economic growth does not automatically lead to social progress. According to economist Roberto Piscitelli, Brazil had disappointing rankings in aspects such as security, in which it ranked number 122, and access to higher education, in place 76. To improve these rates, he believes it is important to have a long-term planning vision.
TEC/SOUND: Economist – Roberto Piscitelli
"We need to recover a bit of planning, which is something more comprehensive and which necessarily requires a long-term vision. This is something that has not been very present. In the long term it means that we have to be humble enough to recognize that what can be done in one mandate is insufficient, that things have to continue and that for projects that are really important for Brazil to be put into practice and completed, and concluded, that this requires a greater degree of participation of society, membership of society"
LOC/REPORTER: Among the countries of Latin America, Brazil was well placed in the IPS survey, behind only Costa Rica, Uruguay, Chile, Panama and Argentina. Official information about the study is on the websitewww.socialprogressimperative.org.
Article by Erica Pierre
BASIC SANITATION: Government announces R$2.8 billion for works in 635 municipalities 06/05/2014
Audio time – 3min20sec
LOC/REPORTER: More than five million Brazilians living in small municipalities will benefit from improvements to basic sanitation. President Dilma Rousseff announced, this Tuesday, the investment of two billion and eight hundred million reais to contract the third stage of the sanitation actions of the Growth Acceleration Program, PAC 2, for cities with up to 50 thousand inhabitants. In total, 635 municipalities from 26 states were selected by the National Health Foundation, Funasa. In the announcement, President Dilma Rousseff stated that investment in sanitation is fundamental to improving the population's quality of life.
TEC/SOUND: President of the Republic, Dilma Rousseff
"Sanitation is of fundamental importance in a country like ours because it is a sector in which traditionally not much has been invested over the past decades. And these investments that we are talking about here today are necessarily part of an effort by the Brazilian government, of state governments and city halls in order to actually build a path to invest in sanitation. Investment in sanitation is visible in infant mortality, it is visible in the well-being of the population, it is visible in quality of life and it is visible in the civility of the country."
LOC/REPORTER: The Minister of Health, Arthur Chioro, highlighted the importance of integrating Funasa into PAC 2 and the investments made since then, not only in works, but also so that municipalities could develop water supply projects or sanitary sewage.
TEC/SOUND: Minister of Health, Arthur Chioro
"Because an extremely important thing is that often there was the resource, but there were no qualified projects that could be presented and transformed into effective works to improve sanitary conditions. But, at this moment, we have the opportunity to associate concrete intervention on measures that have a directly proportional impact on the investment of more health, more quality of life. Every penny invested in sanitation translates into more life."
LOC/REPORTER: The São Paulo municipality of Orlândia was one of the cities selected to receive basic sanitation works. According to Mayor Flávia Mendes Gomes, the investment will be fundamental to solving the municipality's water supply problem.
TEC/SOUND: Mayor of the city of Orlândia, Flávia Mendes Gomes
"We received an investment worth six and a half million and, for our municipality, it solves the biggest problem that the municipality faces today in terms of water supply. And this investment is of fundamental importance for us because we are going to achieve this with investment from the Federal Government to replace a large part of the city's old network."
LOC/REPORTER: The current government has already invested six billion and nine hundred million reais to build water and sewage networks in more than three thousand and three hundred municipalities with up to 50 thousand inhabitants. The goal of the National Basic Sanitation Plan is to achieve 99 percent coverage in drinking water supply, 92 percent in sanitary sewage and end open dumps across the country.
Article by Érica Pierre
ECONOMY: Industrial Business Confidence Index has the lowest number since 2009 04/17/2014
Audio time – 2min29sec
LOC/REPORTER: The confidence of Brazilian industrial entrepreneurs in the country's economy is the lowest since 2009. The Industrial Entrepreneur Confidence Index, the ICEI, calculated by the National Confederation of Industry, the CNI, fell by 3.3 percentage points in the month of April, standing at 49.2. According to the executive manager of economic policy at CNI, Flávio Castelo Branco, the survey does not provide explanations, it only reveals the businesspeople's interpretation of the current situation of the Brazilian economy.
TEC/SOUND: Executive manager of economic policy at CNI – Flávio Castelo Branco
"The research has no explanations, what we have is an interpretation. I mean, it is actually reflecting the low growth environment in the economy, especially in industry, and some uncertainties that hover in the economy. Such as the issue of inflation , of competitiveness, but the index is the index, like a thermometer."
LOC/REPORTER: For economist Júlio Maragaya, this lack of business confidence in the economy does not portray reality. According to him, outside Brazil the assessment of the Brazilian economy is completely different from that made within the country as the world economy has been going through a crisis since 2007 and the Brazilian scenario is not among the worst. The economist cites the drop in unemployment rates and the increase in Brazilian income as fundamental indicators for the economy's performance. Among the negative consequences of this low business confidence, economist Júlio Maragaya cites the loss of opportunities when these businesspeople stop investing due to this wrong interpretation of the country's economic scenario.
TEC/SOUND: Economist – Júlio Maragaya
"What they assess out there is that there is an international crisis, an economic crisis, that has been going on since the end of 2007 and that in fact it manifests itself in different ways and has not yet been effectively resolved. So I think there is a certain alarmism in relation to what we live in Brazil, it is nothing different in relation to the rest of the world, on the contrary, in some aspects it is even a better situation. In an economy where families have higher incomes and where unemployment is lower, in anywhere in the world, this is a fact that is viewed with total sympathy."
LOC/REPORTER: The ICEI is calculated through a questionnaire sent to 2,346 Brazilian companies of all sizes. Businesspeople answer four questions about the current condition of the company, the Brazilian economy, and expectations for the company and the Brazilian economy over the next six months.
Article by Erica Pierre