Outer Voices

The core of the project is a six-part series of hour-long radio sound-portraits that aim to share with audiences in the United States the stories of women who work for peace and sustainable living within the traditional cultures of the Pacific Islands and Asian Pacific Rim - Hawai'i, Burma/Thailand, Cambodia, the Solomon Islands, Bougainville, and Vietnam. Within each community, the project team works under the guidance of a host project advisor, who provides the team members with up-to-date background information and contacts, and also guides the overall content of the programme. All programmes have been undertaken at the invitation of the host communities, who want to bring global attention to their lives and work. To locate and make initial contact with such communities, Outer Voices collaborates with non-profit organisations with a strong working knowledge of the region.

Once a host community has begun a working relationship with Outer Voices, they themselves guide the content of the radio sound-portrait, selecting the issues that are most important to share with Western audiences via the media. A basic tenet of the project is that the content of each programme and the interactions with the host communities are shaped and supervised by project advisors from within the host communities. According to the organisers, this system enables Outer Voices to achieve editorial balance and objectivity, with the continental U.S.-based project team-assembled based on professional experience and commitment complemented by the local project advisors, who are expert in the affairs of their own cultures and in the issues facing the region.

The Outer Voices website will serve as an on-going repository of content and an online forum for grassroots activists. It is expected that online resources will include the complete radio documentaries and written transcripts; additional audio from the source interviews; documentary photographs; links to activist groups worldwide; and an online bulletin board for information-sharing and organising. The site will also feature an extensive page of links to activist groups in Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the West, along with an online bulletin board in which activists from any number of countries can post queries, share methodologies, news, and anecdotes.

In addition to the on-air broadcast of the radio productions, Outer Voices is compiling a roster of women's activist groups worldwide who want to receive tapes of all or some of the broadcasts for their own purposes. Additionally, in collaboration with women's groups, peace and social justice groups, and human rights organizations worldwide, the project team will distribute free cassette tapes of the documentaries directly to grassroots activist groups and individuals nationwide. As requested, they will also make available additional material from the audio interviews, along with written transcripts of the documentaries and/or unedited interviews.

The project is based on the belief that women who work in their own regions, on behalf of their own communities, can effect lasting, non-violent social change and that media can be a tool for getting their stories heard. In addition, once heard, these stories can provide replicable models for social change in other communities around the world. Outer Voices aims to provide media access to these women and their communities, with the goal of fostering a constructive dialogue among activists and organisations worldwide.