Local radio station’s ‘Radio Club’ giving The Vale’s forgotten youth a voice

Bro Radio, a community radio station that broadcasts from the heart of Barry YMCA to The Vale of Glamorgan, is running a ‘Radio Club’ that provides free weekly radio and media sessions to help improve communication skills, confidence and provide industry experience, whilst also giving young people an opportunity to have a voice within their community.

The Radio Club, which has been running since October 2022 and has managed to secure three years of funding from Community Foundation Wales – an organisation funding local projects that help strengthen communities across Wales – operates out of Bro Radio’s second studio at the CF61 Community Centre in Llantwit Major.

The sessions are delivered by experienced youth workers and radio presenters, teaching 12 – 18-year-olds about the world of radio and how to create original radio content.

Bro Radio’s Operations Director, Nathan Spackman, said: “The club allows young people to come into a warm space, meet other young people, learn about the role of radio and media production and get hands on experience.

“Perhaps most importantly, they get to create their own radio programmes and have a say on what is going on in their community.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to learn from radio professionals and people we work with and potentially open up a career in radio. When they’re old enough (i.e. 16 years old), they then can volunteer with us on our programming.”

The upshot is that the Radio Club provides a brilliant way for young people to engage in local and national politics. From February 2023 they’ll be given the opportunity to interview local council and Welsh government politicians about things that are important to them, such as youth services.

Bro Radio’s Radio Club aligns perfectly with the station’s values – values that are underpinned by a feeling of social identity and community pride amongst the urban, rural and coastal communities which exist within the county.

The community radio station gives a platform to local people to be able to question how local decisions are made. That may include issues around budgets, council tax, changes to local services or the cost-of-living crisis.

Mr Spackman said: “The national media tend to focus on Welsh and UK government issues, but what makes the biggest weekly impact to local people, are things like bin collections and potholes – they’re the things that people want to question local politicians on, and so we provide that platform”.

Most recently, one of the biggest issues to dominate conversations in Barry has been the latest round of ‘Levelling Up’ funding to be handed out by the UK government, something that has caused consternation across the country.

Barry’s £20 million bid came in the form of a submission from The Vale of Glamorgan council that involved transforming the Barry Docks waterfront. The decision by the UK government to reject the bid was made even more galling for the community knowing that Cardiff Bay – representing a city that already receives a decent amount of funding in comparison – got theirs accepted.

However, Bro Radio was at least able to host the Vale’s MP, Alun Cairns, who came on to the station to answer questions from the community about the bid, and other important local issues.

Local radio stations in Wales like Bro Radio also played a vital role during the pandemic. They were able to broadcast the most up to date Covid-19 support and advice for ‘hard to reach’ demographics, such as the elderly, disadvantaged groups and rural residents.

It’s this rural demographic that particularly chimes with much of the Vale, which is made up of many isolated communities – and the pandemic only exacerbated the issue. Bro Radio provided a lifeline of information for these communities during this extremely challenging period.

Bro Radio’s 50-strong team, comprising of mainly volunteers with just three paid full-time staff, are currently running free advertising for anyone running a ‘warm hub’, as long as it’s free at the point of access. Wales has seen a sudden increase of warm hubs popping up across communities as a response to a cost-of-living crisis that has seen energy and food bills spiraling.

“We see the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, not only on our building costs but on our volunteers and the wider community. We also advertise local jobs for local councils and organisations to help our residents get back into work during a period of sustained economic instability”, added Mr Spackman.

With monthly audience figures hitting the 22,000 listeners mark (based on Google Analytics data: January – March 2020) and its local news stories read by 16,000 people every week (based on Vale of Glamorgan Council bi-annual survey data 2018), Bro Radio are engaging with a large proportion of The Vale’s population.

Spackman and his colleagues only wish the UK government would help community radio stations continue to serve their communities by providing the sustainable funding they so desperately need, to not just survive, but thrive.

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Bro Radio are members of the Welsh Community Radio Network (WCRN) – community radio stations that provide a voice for hundreds of local communities across Wales. Find out more about Bro Radio’s Radio Club here. Listen to Bro Radio on 98.1 – 106.1fm, smart speakers, Bro Radio app or broradio.fm