Community Empowerment

BROADCASTING & PODCASTING
TOtalk to each otherrestore confidencesharemake peace

Making Waves works for the social and professional inclusion of vulnerable people, in precarious situations or far from employment. We work with local missions, in disadvantaged neighborhoods, shelters, detention centers, hospitals and retirement homes to run workshops where people can express themselves, exchange ideas and tell their stories through radio. In 2021, Making Waves has also set up an “integration studio” employing nine people who are far from employment. Together with radio professionals, they design and produce audio content and podcasts for local authorities, associations, cultural institutions and companies.. By practicing radio, they acquire useful skills for their professional projects, which they develop with us.

Our organization works on a daily basis to promote equal access to culture and expression, and to encourage inclusive citizenship. By making the tools of radio accessible to everyone, and creating spaces for pooling and sharing,we aim to help reduce social fractures and situations of isolation or identity withdrawal.

Setting up a radio station in a context of exclusion enables men and women, a group or a community, to take part in a dynamic, innovative and unifying project. Radio programs are a place for people to meet, interact, have constructive, peaceful discussions, they encourage everyone to listen and to share knowledge and skills. Radio spurs collective endeavors, promotes people’s skills and autonomy. In forging ties where they are possibly lacking, radio is a healing, empowering tool to solve conflicts.

Our project aims to contribute to a better representation of a plurality of voices and ideas in the public arena. Our ambition is to encourage the various beneficiaries of our programs and workshops to become active players in the debates running through society. We believe that radio can be a driving force for social cohesion and civic responsibility, enabling everyone to speak out, exchange views and be heard.

Making Waves has created and set up a studio in Noisy-le-Sec (Seine-Saint-Denis) to promote social integration through radio and podcasting. We employ nine people whom we train in sound production (coordination, recording, editing, technical). They create radio content and podcasts for broadcast on all listening platforms.

Radio is a tool for professional integration. It enables an efficient return to employment. Those who practice it develop multiple human and operational skills. They regain self-esteem by speaking out in the public arena. The Making Waves integration studio offers high added value in terms of autonomy, inclusion and fulfillment, and is fully in line with the challenges of rebound and solidarity transition, and with the strategy of preventing and combating poverty.

By taking the floor and mastering its content and form, the employees of Making Waves’ radio integration project are reclaiming their rightful place in the social and political arena, the place of those who control the telling of their own stories. Learning how to “make” radio is not just a matter of instrumental and technical learning. It’s also about reclaiming one’s identity. The focus of radio practice is as much on the acquisition of knowledge and skills as it is on the history and identity (re)construction of the employee undergoing integration.

hours of work carried out by Making Waves employees on integration programs

programs and podcast episodes produced

return to stable employment for integration studio employees

Radio workshops held in France and around the world

direct beneficiaries of workshops

team meals

RECORDING AND EDITING
DIS-MOI POURQUOI and PAROLES DE CHERCHEURS two podcast series for the online magazine The Conversation

RACONTE-MOI L’ESPACE, a series of podcasts commissioned by the Centre National d’Études Spatiales

PROFESSION BANLIEUE, the podcast of Profession Banlieue, resource center on urban policy in Seine-Saint-Denis

ON SHOW, the Louvre Abu Dhabi podcast series
CONCEPTION, COORDINATION, ANIMATION
ÇA MATCHE AU ZÉNITH for the APSV, the Association de Prévention du Site de la Villette

INVENTER LE MONDE, for Agence Française de Développement, with the program’s prize-winning middle-school students and Jean-Michel Blanquer, French Minister of Education.

RADIO BUPA, radio sets for the Seine-Saint-Denis department as part of the department’s Participatory Budget.
LIVE PRODUCTIONS
RADIO STAGE for the department of Seine-Saint-Denis – Soirée des lauréats de l’Appel à Agir

PLATEAU RADIO at Mains d’œuvre, Saint-Ouen – La Fabrique des Tiers-Lieux,

RADIO STAGE for Radio France – Inter-Classe à Noisy-le-Grand

RADIO STAGE for Radio France – Clak Radio in Bagneux

RADIO STAGE for the department of Seine-Saint-Denis – Le Bel été solidaire
TEAM MANAGEMENT AND WORKSHOPS
LES ONDES DE LA TRAVERSÉE, the radio of the summer festival of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg

RADIO WORKSHOPS for beneficiaries of the Youth Commitment Contract, Local Mission of Gagny, Villemomble and Pavillons-sous-Bois

COMMUNITIES WORKSHOPS for Établissement Public Territorial Grand Paris Grand Est

LES AILES DÉPLOYÉES, workshops in hospitals, Paris