Kenya Community Media Network (KCOMNET)

The objectives of KCOMNET include:

• building awareness and appreciation among decision and policy makers at all levels regarding the positive contribution of community media in the national development agenda;
• fostering an enabling regulatory environment for community media in Kenya;
• helping KCOMNET members and other communities acquire the basic knowledge and skills for community media practice;
• working with KCOMNET members and other communities to acquire the technological resources necessary for the application of community media knowledge and skills; and
• helping KCOMNET's secretariat to develop an accessible and useful resource centre on community media theory and practice.

KCOMNET members are community-based communication groups who use a variety of media, such as street theatre, songs and poetry, live music bands, puppets, radio listening groups, community newspapers and newsletters, community video, resource centres, tele-centres, and radio broadcasting.

Housed by EcoNews Africa, a regional development communication NGO, KCOMNET's activities include lobbying, advocacy, and training activities.

• Training: This takes the form of workshops where KCOMNET group members offer basic communication skills to members of the community communication groups. Training includes modules that enhance skills in a member's area of specialisation as well as new skills towards para-commercialisation and other sustainability measures. Consequently, modules include group dynamics, introduction to community participatory production techniques in radio and television, entrepreneurship, and marketing techniques.
• Advocacy and Lobbying: The lobbying working group works towards the creation of an enabling regulatory environment for community media, the legal recognition of community broadcasting as a distinct third sector of broadcasting, and an independent regulatory body for broadcasting.