By Margaret Thompson

Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE) will webcast live from a former women’s prison under apartheid which is now a Women’s Center, to cover the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 25-September 4, 2002, in collaboration with various international, regional, and local partners.   

Focusing on women’s perspectives on environmental and sustainable development issues, FIRE will be partnering with AMARC (The World Association of Community Radios) and WomensNet of South Africa, to produce live webcasting from the Civil Society Global Forum, the CyberCafe of WomensNet located in the “Old Women’s Prison,” the Women’s Tent sponsored by WEDO (Women’s Environmental & Development Organization) at the Global Forum, and the official UN Conference site.   FIRE will also work with a women’s daily newspaper, GEM WSSD, a publication of the African Woman & Child Feature Service.  Also collaborating with FIRE is the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media at the University of Denver, in Denver, Colorado USA, with special broadcasts on environmental journalism and new media and journalism issues. 

The WSSD, also known as “Rio +10” as a 10-year follow-up to the 1992 UN Conference on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, includes a Civil Society Global Forum from August 19-September 4, as well as the official UN WSSD, August 26-September 4.  Many of the sessions in the NGO (NonGovernmental Organizations) Global Forum in particular will focus on the growing devastation of the earth’s resources under globalization and the increasing poverty of many peoples. 

Daily live broadcasts via Internet from the FIREPLACE in Spanish and English at both the NGO Forum and official UN conference will feature the perspectives of women from around the world, on topics ranging from globalization & poverty, to health and environmental security, to issues related to women’s access and control of energy, water and land resources.  

 Produced by women from Latin American and the Caribbean, FIRE is the first women’s radio station in Internet worldwide.  FIRE staff have attended and broadcast live from every UN Conference since the radio was started in 1991.  Productions feature women’s perspectives from around the world on all issues. 

For more information, see the FIRE website at:  www.fire.or.cr, or write to FIRE at:  fuegocr@racsa.co.cr.