IRIN Radio's work in Liberia has focused on training local radio journalists, providing technical assistance and improving the quality of programme-making. This work has often been done in partnership with Mercy Corps, an international NGO, which is rehabilitating, or starting up, a series of community radio stations across Liberia. In February 2004, IRIN Radio's West Africa team, Regional Project Manager Chris Simpson and Liberian Producer/Trainer Augusta McGill Pshorr, joined Mercy Corps in running a workshop in Liberia's second city, Buchanan, for 29 journalists from the city's two new stations, Radio Gbezohn and Radio One FM.

Two radio stations hit the airwaves in Liberia's second city

As the head of a new radio station in Buchanan, 25-year-old Hector Moba does not underestimate the challenges ahead. "You can see for yourself the kind of problems we have", says Moba, offering a quick guided tour of the facilities at Radio Gbezohn.

A new mixer has just been installed and efforts are being made to stabilise the transmission tower. But most of the studio equipment is faulty. Reception can still be erratic, with the station sometimes falling off the air. There is no money yet to pay staff. Moba's wish-list includes a computer and a larger transmitter.

Power for the station comes courtesy of a generator on loan from Bangladeshi troops deployed in Buchanan as part of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Radio Gbezohn's premises are part studio, part barracks. Soldiers lie on bunk beds, trying to grab some sleep, while journalists go through their scripts and fiddle with tape-recorders. The UN presence means Gbezhon should at least be safe from looters. The station's last generator was stolen.

? IRIN Radio Radio Gbezohn - trying out new equipment

Moba, like most of his colleagues, was part of the broadcasting team at Love FM, the Buchanan station run as part of the Liberian Communications Network (LCN), the media empire of former President Charles Taylor. According to Moba, Love FM was a Taylor creation. Broadcasters were forcibly recruited from the independent station, Radio Atlantic, and told to make programmes "meant to paint Charles Taylor as an angel".

Moba maintains that Love FM's staff did what they could to resist outright political control. "Once two colleagues were dismissed after playing a cassette calling for Taylor's resignation", he recalls, adding that LCN never got round to paying journalists' salaries, which deepened antagonism towards Taylor.

Love FM's old studios can be found on the outskirts of town, looted and abandoned. The reconstituted team at Radio Gbezohn, named after the local term for Buchanan, says the station represents a fresh start for everybody.

"Our first objective here is to make sure people live in a peaceful environment, because we just came from war", says Moba. "We want everyone who helped and harmed people, put them together and say: "look, this is Liberia, we are Liberians and we have to live here in peace".

Radio Gbezohn has received extensive technical and operational assistance from the international NGO Mercy Corps. Gbezohn has an advisory board, made up of senior figures from Buchanan and the surrounding Grand Bassa county.

Ten minutes walk from Gebzohn, in the middle of Buchanan's main thoroughfare, Tubman Street, are the premises of rival station Radio One FM.

? IRIN Radio Radio One FM

Also founded by former journalists from Love FM, One FM's existence is even more precarious. Music comes from a battery-powered radio cassette player. The presenter has a lantern and a candle in what passes for a studio. There is no mixer and no generator, but building work is underway. Director of Programmes, Christopher Yarwoah, says the station has so far lived off "donations from the community" and is openly soliciting more help in terms of cash and equipment.

Yarwoah has a young staff and sees One FM reaching out to a younger generation. "Liberian society has been transformed into a violent society since the 1980s", Yarwoah argues. "The young, who were considered to be the cream of society, have been engaged in violent clashes, leaving thousands dead. Young people need to adjust themselves".

Yarwoah wants to provide regular discussion programmes and talk shows, stressing that Liberians like to be open and have a strong appetite for talk radio. The station has little programme-making capacity, but Yarwoah insists that in a matter of weeks there will be a newsroom, sales department and properly functioning studio.

? IRIN Radio Love FM - all that remains

Despite suggestions that One FM should merge with Gbezohn - as Buchanan can barely sustain one, let alone two, stations - Yarwoah wants to go it alone. "If you don't have competition, you will not know your progress. You will not know what you are achieving".

Station manager Franklin Willie, formerly a senior broadcaster at Love FM, says there is no danger of One FM losing its independence. "As a journalist, you should be a mouthpiece for society", says Willie. "We have no fear here. The community embraces us. God is there and one day will send somebody to help us".

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