All the more remarkable that Lou Giansante, now producer of the Scholastic Publications' education internet radio, kept the weekly, live children's magazine show New York Kids on the air for nine years. Broadcast by WNYC public radio across the five boroughs of New York, New York Kids survived as one of the most successful children's radio formats not just on talent, hard work and the stream of live and recorded children's voices to be heard each Sunday evening, but also because of constant effort put into raising the sponsorship needed to cover production costs. Currently Giansante is producing an Internet magazine for teachers, and exploring the potential for children's Internet radio, seeking ways to set up a news and information exchange. The comparison between his vision and that of fellow speakers exposed the reality of the digital divide. Conversations outside the hall explored possibilities that now exist for analogue-digital conversion using audio software.
Radio already has the technology to bridge the gap.
Director, Rita Panicker, outlined her own vision for including radio as part of the alternative media centre she aims to set up for these marginalised and rejected young people. The Butterflies Programme has in the past ten years organised a comprehensive structure for non-formal education and welfare of street children. Media and communication activities involve the children in lively street theatre productions and in the publication of a regular wall-poster newsheet. Radio workshops were added more recently with children learning how to make their own recordings about their experiences of life on the streets. Plans outlined by Rita Panicker include setting up a radio production unit as part of the media training centre with the aim of eventually being able to bring children off the streets and into work.