With Young People in All the Seasons of the Year

 By Laura Rodriguez Fuentes

Six days a week, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Station 2000 accompanies the public of all ages and receives the special acknowledgment of the young people, because thinking about them and next to them it stays in all the seasons of the year.

I remember specially the day I enter for the first time the studies of CMHW broadcasting station in Villa Clara, to comment live the activities the High-School Students Federation (FEEM) proposed on the occasion of its anniversary.

At that time I attended the first year in Ernesto Guevara  High School  in the city in Santa Clara, and a group of us was invited to the program we listened to every afternoon on the radio: Station 2000.

This way, many other listeners have become usual collaborators of a space like this, that last July 5 celebrated its 12 years of radio broadcasting.

And it is that Station 2000 is not only a program conducted by young people but projected and made for them.

The antecedents of youth spaces in CMHW come from the 70’s, with programs like Hello, Future and Youth of today, directed by Fabio Bosch and Rogelio Castillo, respectively. The idea of a project of this kind on the radio arose during the 1990’s, due to an adjustment of programs and informative priorities.

The first proposal, named Station 1999, appears in the summer of that year with half an hour long, always after the provincial, always after the provincial news program, in a time determined by the greatest amount of audience.

Its function was initially recreational, in order to entertain the listeners. In 2000, after eight months without going on the air, it appears again with the title it keeps until today.

Jesús Ernesto Pérez Pallas, director of the program from the beginning, explains: “We gave the project this name because it was born in the summer season, and its purpose adapts to the moment the young people are living. It has stayed for 12 years, at any moment and in all seasons”.

 The program was one hour long and since then it has been an attempt to guide the new generations.

Its speakers are Yoandys Manso, Jefry Carrazana, María Luisa Bringas, Liliet Gómez, Liecty Ruiz or Didiana Rigó, who confess the daily work gave them the necessary practice to channel their later training as professionals.

A second intermediate generation of speakers are also remembered affectionately by the audience, like Marianela Machado, Jarlis Rafael Ramírez and Yanet González.

 “We have got some experience in every sense”, Yariel Valdés and Vivian Rosa García agree. They are two of the present speakers of Station 2000. “Through the program we develop some aptitudes in the schools and improve the artistic vocations of the students”, Vivian adds.

 Other current speakers are Elvis Fernandez, Dagnieris Rodriguez, Daniel García and the new voices in training Joaquin Suárez and Luis Orlando Torres, who state they do their best in front of the microphone to take the message to the listeners.

 “If it is hot or cold, if they are in a period of exams, if it is an important historical moment, we considere all those issues to conceive the script”, Pérez Pallas explains, an eternal teenageer and persevering promoter of the program.

The subjects diealed with in the usual colloquy are related to important dates, anniversaries, events, preferences and tendencies of the young people so that they feel identified with the theme. This way, music and dialogue form  a harmonious whole, complemented with cultural invitations, recreational proposals, calls, guests and even useful advices for life.

 “We try to educate through music”, comments Jesus Ernesto Perez Pallas, “without reiterating the commercial tunes some people believe this generation prefer, but it is not like this.”

Pedro Peña, musical producer, says: “We always propose rhythms with a message, like the present Trova and even dance orchestras and of a good popular taste, always addressed to form a proper behaviour in the young people.”

One of the merits of Station 2000 is that it manages to represent in each broadcast all the student organizations with guests, specialists and the usual cultural proposals “in the Station 2000 style”. Every day they tell a story, because the staff feels young and full of jovial charisma and mutual affection.

 With six weekly frequencies, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Station 2000 goes with  the audience of all ages and receives the special recognition of the young people, because the program  keeps thinking of them and next to them it stays in all the season of the year.