Hello Chicago allies of independent media,
and greetings from the Prometheus Radio Project!

(please forward widely to your friends and allies in chicago -- we'll be in town march 1st-5th and we're free to meet with you this thursday or friday! to stop receiving these emails, write
hannah (at) prometheusradio.org.)

For those of you who don't remember us, we're a group of activists who have been building radio stations across the United States and around the world for over six years. But for the first time, we've been invited to help build a community media project of a different sort.

While Congress and the National Association of Broadcasters keep Low Power FM from expanding into America's biggest cities, communities across the country are taking back the airwaves using wireless networks.

Families and neighborhood leaders in historic North Lawndale will work with the Homan Square Community Center, and the Center for Neighborhood Technology, to build a community internet network. Families will share connectivity with each other, exchanging local content, news, and culture over a network in a neighborhood where this essential tool gets harder to afford, rather than easier, every year. And Prometheus will be there to help build their network, and work to frame it as a tool that communities across the country can use to fight corporate control of our airwaves.

Prometheus is in town March 1st-5th to meet with stakeholders in North Lawndale, but we're also looking to tour across the city late in the week, to let folks know a little about this planned project, and how you can support the North Lawndale residents as they pursue this pioneering project. We can come to your office, meeting room, bar, or basement, to discuss our work, and talk about the movement for a more democratic media. We are most free to meet with you Thursday or Friday, but might be able to make time Saturday or Sunday.

Please email Hannah Sassaman at hannahjs (at) prometheusradio.org, or Pete Tridish at petri (at) prometheusradio.org, or leave a message for us at 267 970 4007, to set up a time for a Promethean to visit you this week.

And read below for more background on this exciting project.

All best,
The Prometheus Radio Project

* * * * *

WHO:

The Prometheus Radio Project is thrilled to help develop a new kind of Barnraising -- a Wireless Community Internet Barnraising. We were approached by the Center for Neighborhood Technologies (CNT), a group working at the cutting edge of sustainable development for Chicago for the past 20 years, and by Free Press, a public policy organization working to bring community voices into the fight for a better media system. CNT has worked with the Homan Square Center, a community resource center housed in the old Sears and Roebuck headquarters, to transmit free internet connectivity to dozens of families in historic North Lawndale. Now these community partners will work with Prometheus to bring high-speed internet connectivity, computers, and local content to hundreds of North Lawndale citizens.

WHAT:

We'll work with CNT to bring volunteers in to build this network over a long weekend, May 5th-9th, 2005. Community radio organizers, local leaders, geeks, musicians, lawyers, and activists will come from all over the city and the surrounding area to build wireless nodes, clean up computers, and deploy a community-run, community-maintained, open source wireless network. Homan Square will host dozens of workshops, taught by local and international experts, on internet radio, computer literacy, local content production, and building and troubleshooting wireless nodes. Policy experts will brief municipal telecommunications officers, residents, and activits for Chicago, and cities across the country, on the best way to fight to own their own airwaves. And at the end of the weekend, Homan Square and North Lawndale will host a community internet network faster than anything Verizon or SBC provides on the open market.

WHY:

Why is Prometheus building a new kind of community media? Companies like Verizon, Comcast, and SBC are working overtime to prevent projects like the CNT community wireless project from taking off. These companies -- the same companies that refuse to bring first-rate broadband internet access to our inner cities -- have convinced at least 11 states to pass legislation that prevents cities from providing telecommunications services to their residents. Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland -- as cities line up to give an essential communication service to their residents, corporate lobbyists representing the biggest telecommunications giants in history scare state legislatures into forbidding their cities from moving forward.

While Prometheus and our allies can't build Low Power FM stations in these cities, where this country's most diverse communities are fighting to make their voices heard, we are proud to help commmunities take back their airwaves with this important service.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

wcn.cnt.org, nicole (at) cnt.org
www.prometheusradio.org, hannahjs (at) prometheusradio.org