On a normal day, a group of radio announcers arrive at their daily jobs at WCK radio broadcaster, proceeding with the radio\u2019s scheduled programming while, outside, the tropical storm Carmela rapidly transforms into a hurricane. The broadcasters suddenly find themselves trapped inside the building, striving to survive, while simultaneously attempting to aid the community, informing the population about the situation that is currently occurring, supporting the implementation of emergency plans at family and community levels, in addition to upholding the community\u2019s morale in the midst of the catastrophe. The obstacles the characters face, their stories and their fears are the essence and core of this extreme, life-threatening, situation.<\/p>\n
The play, whose cast is composed of actresses and actors with or without disabilities, presents an issue to which, until now, little to no attention has been paid to, but whose necessity and representation in the media is imperative: The inclusion of people with disabilities and older people in the preparation, prevention and mitigation of disasters, as well as during an emergency that such disasters cause: in this case, a tropical storm turns into a hurricane.<\/p>\n
Radio Storm is, thus, an important part of the campaign \u00abInclusion Saves Lives\u00bb, an awareness campaign that is being implemented in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, in the frame of the project \u201cInclusion of people with disabilities and older people in Disaster Risk Reduction in Central America.\u201d the implantation of the project is done currently by a consortium composed by the Federation of Associations of People with Disabilities in Nicaragua (FECONORI) and the Foundation for Cooperation and the Communal Development of El Salvador (CORDES), together with other partner organizations, with the financial support of the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of the German government.<\/p>\n
For the creation and staging of the work, the Embassy of Spain in Nicaragua through its cultural center in Managua joined the above mentioned consortium, contributing not only with their experience in the creative field and performing arts, but also financially supporting this initiative. Furthermore, Radio Storm was also supported by the other Cultural Centers of Spain in Central America, such as those in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, countries where the play has also been performed.<\/p>\n
The theater play was presented during November 2017 in Managua, Guatemala City, San Salvador and Tegucigalpa attending in total more than 500 local, national and regional key stakeholder of disaster risk reduction who have now more awareness on inclusion. At the same time, the theater play had a large media coverage attending several TV channels and newspapers to the different presentations.<\/p>\n