The Eldos FM story

Eldos Fm was conceptualised in 2005 by Lorreal Ferris, Malcolm Buys and Kim August.  During 2005 and 2006 we made the community aware that we are embarking on applying for a community radio license but little did we know how much time and effort the process would take. We made use of opportunities such as “16 June-Youth day” and “24 September -Heritage day” to host talent shows while at the same time marketing our initiative, explaining to the public why a medium such as radio is necessary in Eldos. At the time, there was no community print medium. No medium spoke directly to the people of Eldorado Park, Kliptown and the surrounding settlements.

We had several meetings and campaigned door-to-door for letters of support so as to apply for a special events license.

In May 2008, ICASA granted our first special events license, needless to say, we learned so much from this experience. We learned that some of us were ill-prepared and we did not realise the full capacity and penetrating ability of community radio. We received an overwhelming degree of support and interest from the community. We realised that we have a huge responsibility to air community-appropriate information and we formed partnerships with the NGO’s in the community. Melita Johnson and Aasia Fredericks joined the team and assisted with our plight in securing a radio license.

Eldorado Park is notorious for crimes such as gang violence, car theft and alcohol and drug abuse (to name a few). We formed allies with the likes of SANCA, the Eldorado Park SAPS, Kliptown Family court, Love Life etc. to speak to the community about the stats and severity of the social ills and they offered help and support.

In September 2008, we received our second special events license. At this time, we were a lot more organized and our broadcasting became more professional.

In October 2008, we applied for our 5 year license.

We received an enormous amount of letters of endorsement from the public, which assisted favourably and resulted somewhat, in ICASA approving our 5 year community broadcasting license. In July 2009 we were granted our 5 year license and we started broadcasting from 04 December 2009. Though some shows on Eldos FM need training and development, we value the commitment and courageous efforts of all our presenters, sound engineers, journalists and news readers. In 2010, we will equip our staff with the skills and resources to provide quality programmes.

View gallery of our 2 day workshop held at Harvey Cohen after the good news of our license approval (this was before we went on air).

Malcolm Buys, Asia Fredericks, Cecil Ndebele

                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                 Cuba Wills, Stan Geldenhuis, Lavern Phillips

         Gerald Williamson, Yasseen Hyatt, Melita Johnson

                                                                                                              Mimi Enith, Malcolm Buys, Lorreal Ferris, Stan Geldenhuis

 Mimi Enith, Malcolm Buys, Lorreal Ferris, Stan Geldenhuis, Gerald Williamson