Rofto: Radio of the Others

Haroon R. Abu Arra is a 23 year old born in Aqqaba, Palestine. He studied in Aqqaba until he reached secondary school where he left to Jenin to work in a TV and radio station where he requested to become a broadcaster. He started preparing for his first program called “Qethart Al Layel,” a music and poetry show where young people talk about relationship problems. He remained in the program for 6 months before leaving to Ramallah. From there, he started to act upon his dream: to start his own radio station. And that wasn’t just for the sake of having any radio station. He wanted his station to be different, unique, something that makes a difference in people’s lives, in how people communicate with each other.

Haroon was upset with Palestine’s unprofessional radio stations, where the aim was to collect revenues from advertisers. He figured the media there was rather dead primarily for this purpose. There wasn’t enough passion, his “dream” radio station wasn’t in existence in any form. That’s when he decided to create it himself.

Haroon in the studio.

I have a chat with Haroon to learn more about his initiative. Below is a brief interview:

Q: What is Rofto radio?
A: The “R” stands for “Radio,” and the other letters stand for “Of the others.” It’s an abbreviation for “Radio Of The Others.”

Q: When did you establish it?
It was established on the 21st of May 2009, during my birthday.

Q. How did you come up with the idea, and what inspired you?
I’ve had this idea for a while. The main reason is the unprofessional stations that we have in our occupied country, and the poor media. This made me want to fight and become a cultural fighter of sorts, for freedom of speech, freedom of life, and human rights regardless of religion, language, or ethnicity.

Q. What do you hope to achieve with Rofto radio?
I hope to have the biggest media outlet for youth in the world. They have the humanity inside them and they believe that we are the same, all humans. Then I hope to have the first internet radio station in the world with all the global languages, nationalities and religions, to make the main revolution in the world a “revolution of humanity,” living together, respect. No war, no blood, no checkpoints between us. Just humanity, peace, and love.

Rofto Logo.

Q. How many people are participating in this initiative so far?
Not as many as I dream of, I’m the general project manager, and we have a good team in Indonesia, Germany, the Netherlands, and a large team in Palestine. We also have a presence in Japan, Scotland, and Canada, more to come soon.

Q. How would you explain your web portal currently, is it just radio or will there be videos and articles featured as well?
Rofto’s website will be a place for videos, articles, radio, news, discussions and dialogue, with many teams from around the world making it possible.

Q. In how many languages do you wish to operate?
I wish that there was one language in the world to make things easier but I will have to try my best to have our programs available in as many languages as possible.

Q. Did you already begin recording some programs and if so, what are they about?
Not yet, our website is still under construction. I tried many times to have someone design this website and to turn it into what we envision, a place to have videos, audio, articles and discussions. No one was able to help me. I wish after now you’ll know and we’ll find someone to help us achieve that.

Q. Why do you think people should join this cause?
I think people should join this project for one reason, they’re humans and this is a humanity project.

Q. Finally if you have anything you wish to add, please let us know.
I want to say that I’d like to invite everyone who sees themselves taking part ofo ur team, we need project managers from all over the world. We need your support to build this radio and start podcasting soon. Make our dream to build Rofto as the sign of peace and love.

To stay in touch with Rofto, join their group on Facebook. Thank you Haroon for taking the time to tell us more about your great initiative which we wish you much luck with. Concerning your website, I can assure you that we’ll do our best to support you with it. It’s important that projects like yours are successful and influential amongst youth in this region and beyond.

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