Media educator bats for including community radio in disaster planning
Published:Thursday | February 26, 2026 | 12:13 AM
WESTERN BUREAU:
Dr Patrick Prendergast, director of the Caribbean School of Media and Communication, is renewing the call for community radio stations to be formally embedded in Jamaica’s disaster communication framework, arguing that trusted information is a lifeline during crisis.
Prendergast, who was addressing a thanksgiving service at the Duncans Evangelistic Centre in Trelawny on Sunday to mark the 14th anniversary of More FM 91.7, used the occasion to highlight the fact that Hurricane Melissa exposed a structural weakness in Jamaica’s emergency planning – the continued marginalisation of grassroots communication systems.
“One of the great revelations of Hurricane Melissa is, how far away we still are in ensuring that communication is central to disaster and emergency planning,” said Prendergast.
“We still think communication is about press conferences and the ability for higher-positioned officials to deliver information.”
He cautioned that official responses remain overly dependent on top-down briefings, rather than coordinated, community-embedded information networks capable of reaching vulnerable and rural populations when conventional systems fail.
Prendergast, who raised similar concerns four years ago during the Aggrey Brown Distinguished Lecture, reiterated that community radio must be defined beyond technology or geography and incorporated into the National Public Information and Communication agenda.
As western Jamaica continues to rebuild following Hurricane Melissa, he said the role of stations like More FM 91.7 remains indispensable.
“Radio will never die,” he declared. “The technologies may evolve and the formats may change with the times, but, because at its core it is the transmission of sound, its value is central to communication as we know it.”
He said the hurricane proved that when electricity, telecommunications and Internet services collapse, radio, particularly community radio, often remains one of the most resilient and accessible platforms.
Globally, he added, community radio systems represent the heartbeat of local information and culture, providing space for law enforcement, religious leaders, youth voices and marginalised communities to engage in dialogue and access critical updates.
Reinforcing Prendergast’s position, Dr Paul Hector, representing the UNESCO Regional Office for the Caribbean, described access to verified information as “not a luxury, but a lifeline”, particularly for small island developing states facing intensifying climate shocks.
Speaking on behalf of UNESCO’s regional director, Hector said 14 years of broadcasting reflects not just longevity, but trust and consistency within the community.
Following Hurricane Melissa, UNESCO partnered with the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica and media stakeholders to conduct a damage and needs assessment of the sector. The findings revealed more than US$30 million (J$4.8 billion) in losses to media infrastructure and at least 112 media workers displaced, injured, or unable to work due to shutdowns.
“When electricity went off and telecommunications failed, radio was a constant voice during the darkness,” Hector said. “It was reassurance. It connected families. It connected authorities with citizens.”
He noted that More FM was among the stations visited during the post-hurricane assessment, commending its continued operations under challenging circumstances and its collaboration with national authorities to disseminate practical guidance, including information related to post-disaster assistance programmes.
Beyond broadcasting updates, Hector emphasised that community radio played a critical role in countering misinformation and providing psychosocial reassurance during a period marked by fear and uncertainty.
“In the same way that we invest in physical infrastructure, we must invest in communication infrastructure,” he said, signalling UNESCO’s continued commitment to strengthening emergency broadcasting systems, media ethics, misinformation prevention, and technical resilience across the region.
Prendergast and Hector also underscored that as climate-related shocks intensify, Jamaica must treat communication not as an afterthought, but as core national infrastructure, a lesson, they said, Hurricane Melissa made impossible to ignore.