Radish Radio-a powerful movement needs a powerful soundtrack

Our names are Noëlie, a climate justice organiser, and Lucy, a musician and communication expert.

We’re building an online community radio station from the movement, for the movement.

Will you help us make this possible?

/// What is the project

Our dream is to kick-start a new online radio that will bring together a love for music and for social justice : RADISH RADIO

Music makers rarely have space to be political - and social justice activists rarely prioritize music, dance and joy. We hope that Radish Radio will be a place for both!

Through Radish Radio, we want to show that the revolution is happening everywhere - and that you’re invited to be a part of it! You will be hearing from occupations, community organizers, and music festivals. Our voice will be creative, joyful and spontaneous.

/// What will it sound like

Listen to our 1-min audio trailer https://soundcloud.com/radish-radio :)

Or watch our trailer https://www.radishradio.org/

Radio has long been a trusted voice and an incubator of cultural and social movements. Live radio has that in-the-moment feel so we will be able to bring the movement straight to your headphones. It’s time to stop scrolling and join something real.

We will host a mix of music and shows.

Our shows will feature voice clips and short-interviews from ongoing political and music events - this is how we plan to amplify voices of local organizers and local artists directly to your ears.

Tune in to hear a short clip of how Serbian organizers are fighting lithium mining. Followed by the coolest Balkan DJs!

We will also host game shows where listeners can engage in conversation with us.

Our favorite one so far is “Are you mad at me?” a show where we listen to people who hate activists and engage with their remarks with an open-heart.

And of course, we will have DJ sets, playlists, music shows! A central part of the radio is to focus on music and the music industry, broadcasting up-and-coming artists and doing live interviews from raves and festivals.

We want the radio to be a collective project with contributors from music artists and political organisers. The main language will be English, but expect to hear French, Romanian, Polish, Greek etc! Sometimes, you don’t need to understand everything to enjoy radio. But don’t worry we will have scheduled (and predictable) times for shows in other languages and for specific genres of music.

/// How it will work technically

It will be an online radio hosted on a website (and later a mobile app) because we want people to be able to tune it from different countries. Maybe one day, we will have a boat to broadcast from, but we’re not there yet.

We hope to launch the radio in October 2024 - initially going live only a few hours a week at a regular time to build our listenership (this is how most non-for-profit radio stations start out). The rest of the time will be filled with pre-recorded music playlists and shows.

As we progressively build the station, we can schedule more time on-air.

/// Who we are

We are Lucy & Noëlie - leading the project on behalf of the Gastivists Collective. We met years and years ago through youth climate activism and recently started working again together at the Gastivists.

Lucy : I’m an artist and activist from the UK. I grew up making music and joining protests, and I just never stopped. Throughout my time working with international climate justice movements I always wanted to bring music to the foreground of activism but never figured out how to do that well. Starting a radio station seems to just make sense!

What do I bring to the radio? mixing sounds together in a way that sounds good...

My secret power? I can play any song on the piano on command (maybe we can turn that into a call-in show)

Noëlie : Based in Switzerland, originally from Lebanon and France, I have been engaged in social justice movements for 10 years : from university occupations, to coal-mine activism.

What I bring to the radio? A network of social justice activists based around the world

My secret power ? I am a brazilian jiu jitsu fighter

Both of us are part of the Gastivists : a collective working on the intersection of fossil gas with social justice, militarisation and antifascism, for systemic change and a just energy future. We specifically work with grassroots activists in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (we have team members in Italy, Greece, Romania and Poland).

Some of us have been hanging out at the UN climate negotiations (the “COPs”) for nearly a decade, allowing us to build relationships with climate and social justice organizers from around the world.

So it’s us, but not just us! We want this radio to be a collective process! We have hosted online introduction calls every 2 months to present the radio project and co-build it with interested activists and artists, and we have a growing cohort ready to submit content, from shows, radio plays, interviews, podcasts, on-the-ground reporting, sets and parties.

/// Why are we fundraising

We are fundraising to allow us to set up the foundations of the radio for 1 year.

After looking into applying to foundations, we got feedback that we needed to show that this project already head support from the community we’re trying to reach. After receiving so much interest and engagement from our networks, and from new people as the word spread, we felt like a crowdfunder could give us the freedom to actually kick off the project and gather even more support!

This project is a real leap for us, as it’s so different to anything we’ve ever done - but we want to give it a real go, to take risks and experiment. Radish Radio also feels like the most exciting and fun project we’ve done in a while, and something that could add real value to all our efforts. Someone (our friend Kevin) once told us the world is full of people doing what they think they should do instead of what they are excited to do. Sounds like good advice to us.

Your money will specifically cover :

The remaining money is simply to cover the fees for hosting the crowdfunder. The donations will be transferred to LINGO, which has been the fiscal host of Gastivists since we began in 2017.

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LISTEN TO OUR 1-MIN AUDIO TRAILER :)

https://soundcloud.com/radish-radio

Or watch it https://www.radishradio.org/