Local kids will take to the airwaves next week during a summer camp at Simon Fraser University.
The one-week program is hosted by CJSF, SFU’s radio station, and promises to show campers the ins and outs of radio, such as teaching interviewing skills, how to record and edit sound files along with providing “on-air radio DJ training.”
“There’s a sort of magic to radio,” said Gurpreet Kambo, one of SFU’s many DJs. One of Kambo’s hopes is that campers will come away from the program knowing a little bit more about the broadcasts they hear on the car ride to school.
“In the paper, it’s not hard to imagine how it came together, … but it’s a little harder to imagine exactly how radio comes together,” Kambo said.
CJSF is a campus community radio station. Its specific broadcasting licence means that it has to abide by strict guidelines as to the content it can air.
The station provides a spotlight for up-and-coming local artists as well as providing programming that couldn’t find a home on a bigger network, such as entire hours of content in Russian or Portuguese.
The radio camp will provide workshops for storytelling, music and even beatboxing. One day is reserved for a planned excursion to the television and radio departments of the CBC. For those worried about a week of sitting indoors, don’t be.
Ideas for stories won’t be hard to come by on campus. With a cappella groups springing up in the library to lavatory sit-ins protesting the lack of gender-neutral washrooms, there’s always something going on, according to Kambo.
On the last day, campers will put all the skills they have learned over the week to use as they host a days’ worth of radio programming at CJSF.
“We absolutely value the voice of youth, and it is very undervalued in mainstream media,” Kambo said.
The camp is for kids aged eight to 12 and runs Aug. 10 to 14. For all the details, check out http://cjsf.ca/kidscamp.
Aug. 5, 2015, 10:30 a.m. - Correction: An earlier version of this story contained a mispelling of Gurpreet Kambo's name.
