VOC celebrates birthday with Prison broadcast and going Online Voice of the Cape (VOC), a Muslim community radio in Cape Town, celebrates its 7th anniversary in September with two new initiatives. On Sunday the first of September, the station will become the first community radio station to do a live broadcast from prison. The broadcast at Paardeberg prison in Paarl, follows the success of the station's program dedicated to prisoners and several appeals by Muslim inmates for more help in religious instruction. "It took months of consultation with prison authorities to make this broadcast possible between 7 and 11am on Sunday and it is a tremendous achievement for us. We regard it as the beginning of a much needed outreach program, which we hope to build out to other prisons," says Yusuf Gaidien, VOC's regional co-ordinator in the Boland. The station, which shares the 100.4FM frequency and broadcasts on 95.8FM in the Boland, claims more than 150,000 listeners. Gaidien says VOC has been delighted with the positive response it has received from its listeners about the prison broadcast. "Most of our listeners, polled during two shows, saw this as an opportunity to help in the rehabilitation of prisoners and ease their way back into society. While we can not excuse criminal actions and sympathise with their victims, we believe that as concerned citizens, we are compelled to smoothen the rough path prisoners walk to re-integrate into society. This broadcast is one way of reaching out to them," says Gaidien. Boland presenter, Yusuf Gaidien gets into the swing of things at Paardeberg prison by helping to serve the inmates with breakfast during VOC's historic prison broadcast. On the same day, the station launches a second new initiative by going online at www.vocfm.com, in the hope of attracting a new audience, while making itself more accessible to its existing listeners. "The website is another exciting step forward for us as a community radio, opening up new opportunities. Community radio was established as an empowerment tool to minorities in this country. However, by taking to the internet, we hope to move out of a developmental phase and becomes a competitive media," says VOC's station manager, Imam Allie. The website will primarily focus on news and activities within the Muslim community of the Cape. Compiled by the station's own news team, its news will focus primarily on issues that affect Muslim in this part of the world and abroad. These would be updated a number of times during the day. While the website will provide transcripts of selected features, from financial to global matters, it will also serve the smaller needs of the community by making space for the latest VOC listener drives and even classified advertisements. A major advantage of the website is the easy access it provides to listeners who wish to interact with the station. "Listeners will not only be able to post their comments and contributions to programs online, they would also be able to contact presenters directly, log complaints, obtain marketing information, vote on interesting issues while keeping their finger on the pulse of the Muslim community of the Cape," says the station manager. It was a hard slog for the young entrepreneurs at rYNq, the software development company that developed this website. Here Samir Franciscus and Brian Brickles share a light moment as they race towards the deadline.

VOC made history when it became the first community radio to enter a joint venture with the Department of Correctional Services to promote community awareness on prisoner rehabilitation. Here presenters Ismail Jacobs (left) and Yusuf Fisher (right) get to know the prisoners better. <% End Select %>