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TV Signal for All

This initiative seeks to combat the spread of misinformation and false claims from politicians by establishing television transmission in the rural areas of Kosovo. This will also help to integrate the Bosniak community more fully into Kosovo life and out from media darkness.

Description

Kosovo is in the XXI century but that is hard to tell to the people of the south and east of Kosovo where signal from Kosovo Television (the national TV station of Kosovo, which transmits programmes in five languages: Albanian, Serbian, Turkish, Ashkali and Bosnian) doesn’t exist and where people are forced to pay for expensive satellite signal. Of course that doesn’t mean that all families in this region are able to pay for satellite television; our research has shown that the majority of people in this area do not have any television service at all. This causes great problems in delivering true information about events and news from Kosovo and the surrounding region to these people, whose lives are strongly linked to the situation in Kosovo and the surrounding region. This allows the spread of misinformation about the status of Kosovo as well as false statements from politicians, which adds to tensions and conflicts within the region.

The majority of the people affected by this media darkness are from the Bosniak community, which overall numbers more than 50,000 throughout Kosovo. There is a feeling amongst this community that they are intentionally being isolated from the rest of Kosovo society. This media darkness adds to this feeling.

Therefore our organisation has decided to start addressing this problem; initially we started to address this problem only in the municipalities of Zupa Recane – City of Prizren. Many people in this area have no alternative but to listen to Serbian radio or watch Serbian television, and hear of information about Kosovo only from the Serbian perspective. The inhabitants of this area are actually more familiar with what is happening in neighbouring countries than with their own. The aim of the initiative was to organise influential parties in Kosovo to arrange a deal with TV Kosovo to build television infrastructure in this municipality so that the people here would have free public television services.

Aims / Objectives

The aim of this initiative was to provide free television access to the people in this municipality, to provide them with accurate informational sources, and to start addressing the problem of a lack of television signal in this not so small region. It is the lack of proper information that can cause conflict, and the people who do not have television signal depend on hearing information about the situation in Kosovo from various unreliable sources.

How it is Articulated

It was articulated through representing the interests of the people to the local governments, central authorities, international factions and the producers of TV Kosovo.

Achievements / Learning Points

It makes us proud to see that we Bosniaks are also a part of Kosovo everyday situations. A very great number of people have heard of this problem and have become aware of the issues. We have obtained promises from the local authorities that this problem will be completely solved in near future, and also from the temporary commissioner for television signal in Kosovo, but since then we have had no help or assistance from the local or national government.

We would like to do this entire project again and again until the entire region is covered by television signal. We would also try a different approach to the fundraising for buying the equipment required to establish television transmissions. For this project we fundraised through advocacy, but building television transmitters for the entire area will cost around 130,000 euros.

Geographical Area of Operation

We have carried out this work in the small municipalities of Zupe and Dragash but the problem still exists in Prizren, Recane, and we are looking for partners and donors who would like to help us implement this initiative in the entire region.

Funding Resources

This initiative was started by the Kosovo Bosniaks who are forced to live in media darkness and have limited access to information.

Organisations Involved

Stories

We can't remember any funny anecdotes but many of our volunteers and benefactors from the project have said that this is a great idea and they are happy to finally have a television signal.