PCI-Media Impact is participating in GlobalGiving's Open Challenge, an online fundraising drive, to save one of their most successful social change communications campaigns, which was recently cancelled as a result of the June 28 military coup in Honduras.

Agua de Ángel is a multi-faceted communications campaign developed by PCI-Media Impact and their Honduran partner, Red de Desarrollo Sostenible (Sustainable Development Network, in English), to encourage rural communities to protect and conserve local water supplies, which are increasingly threatened by deforestation, pesticide use, and mismanagement of solid waste.

The focal point of the campaign is an educational radio soap opera by the same name, Agua de Ángel, which broadcast its first five episodes in May and June on a government radio station. As a result of the military coup, the program has been taken off the air, and the Sustainable Development Network needs additional funding to broadcast on commercial radio.

PCI-Media Impact, as co-producer of this campaign, is determined to revive Agua de Ángel using GlobalGiving (www.globalgiving.com/3732). GlobalGiving's Open Challenge is a month-long online fundraising competition where individuals and organizations can make contributions to innovative projects of their choice. Media Impact has until Friday, September 18 to raise the $10,000 needed to fund the commercial rebroadcast of Agua de Ángel and provide continued technical assistance to the team in Honduras.

"Agua de Ángel is more than a radio program - it is a community-driven effort to improve the status quo. Our Global Giving Open Challenge site allows people from around the world to actively support a grassroots environmental movement, at a time when Honduran voices are struggling to be heard," says Michael Castlen, Executive Director of PCI-Media Impact.

In the communities surrounding the Valle de Ángeles river basin, the campaign's target audience, water supplies are increasingly scarce and contaminated as a result of illegal logging, destructive agricultural practices and inadequate management of solid waste. In Honduras, less than 14% of water is safe for drinking, according to the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program, and worldwide, water-related diseases are the leading cause of death in children under the age of five.

In response to these issues, the Sustainable Development Network and community members from Valle de Ángeles developed Agua de Ángel using Media Impact's Entertainment Education methodology. In weekly episodes, community members portray characters that dramatize the environmental and health consequences of contaminated water supplies and depleted natural resources.

The soap opera is part of a larger radio magazine show that features interviews with environmental experts, tips for conserving water, and discussions about the soap characters. In addition to the radio program, Sustainable Development Network has hosted a variety of educational workshops and street theater performances to engage community members in water conservation efforts and environmentally-friendly land use practices.

"Access to clean, safe drinking water should not be a privilege, but a basic human right," says Castlen. "We look forward to getting Agua de Ángel back on the air as soon as possible, so that rural Hondurans can promote clean, safe water within their own communities."

About PCI-Media Impact:
Since 1985, PCI-Media Impact's programs have addressed the root causes of poverty and have encouraged people to make choices that lead to better health and sustainable development. Working with local partners worldwide, PCI-Media Impact produces carefully researched and culturally sensitive radio and television dramas that combine the power of storytelling with the reach of broadcast media. For more information, please visit PCI-Media Impact's website at www.mediaimpact.org.

About Red de Desarrollo Sostenible - Honduras:
The Red de Desarrollo Sostenible - Honduras promotes sustainable development through the information exchange, virtual forums, audiovisual productions, socioeconomic research and implementation of socioeconomic and environmental projects. Currently, the network has 600 active members that exchange information according to their areas of interest. For more information, please visit RDS's website at www.rds.hn.

PCI-Media Impact

PCI-Media Impact

PCI-Media Impact is at the forefront of innovative social change communications programming. Its pioneering approach uses creative media, the power of storytelling and the reach of broadcast media to mobilize individual, community and political action in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, environmental conservation and sustainable development, human rights and democracy.

For over twenty years, its programming has captured people's imagination. Media Impact has trained hundreds of organizations and community leaders in the effective use of media. Working with media professionals, it has completed more than 242 productions, including radio and television serial dramas, comic books, documentaries and public service announcements reaching hundreds of millions of people in 27 countries around the world.

From Mexico to India, Kenya to China, Media Impact has been: "Telling Stories, Saving Lives." For more information, please visit the website at www.mediaimpact.org.

PCI Media Impact Videos:

Click here to watch Who is Media Impact?
Click here to watch Behind the Scenes of PCI Media Impact
Click here to watch Taru Has Changed My Life: Educational Radio Soap Opera

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