The course covers basic journalistic practices, such as the use of radio language and interview techniques, the ability to mediate debates, and the skills necessary to prepare good news stories. At the end of the training participants will produce five-minute radio programmes, based on the course content. They well continue to receive support from Jequitibá after the training, in their everyday work.

The course is supported by several Swiss and Brazilian partners. Its content has been designed by the Swiss journalists Jean-Jacques Fontaine and Yves Magat, both of whom have 20-year experience in broadcast journalism. “The idea is to put into practice techniques that can help to produce a good interview, to prioritize information, to understand the importance of research and to use the Internet," says Jean-Jacques Fontaine.

The five-day course will be attended by about 30 radio operators. Later this year two other sessions will be carried out in the Northern and Midwestern regions of Brazil. In 2011 Jequitibá and UNESCO plan to hold four new sessions in the Southern region. The goal of this project is to train about 270 community radio operators from all over the country.

Surveys show that Brazil has over 4,000 legalized community radio stations and about 10,000 of those that are still waiting for licenses. "Community radios in Brazil are the real new blood of the population, they are close to people’s reality and very popular," says Yves Magat. "The operators are generally highly motivated, even though in many cases they have to deal with very difficult living conditions."

In 2008 and 2009 UNESCO and Jequitibá already conducted the same course in Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Aracaju and Salvador. It was attended by 110 radio operators, who found it very useful. "These classes are very important for us, because everything we did before was based on intuition. Now we have basic knowledge of most of the techniques and can select and produce better programmes," sais Paulo Tito from Pernambuco State, who attended the 2009 course.