Access Radio is a project of Access Christian Media, a UK registered charity (No. 1131237) engaged in media production, training/education and social enterprise. Media
Whilst we are a Christian organisation, our media is not aimed at Christians but is designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Nevertheless, our content is designed to reflect the ethos and values of the Christian faith
such as decency, honesty and integrity. In doing this, we also aim to produce content that tackles important issues such as social action, poverty and education. The net result is quality media, addressing vital issues that won’t have you reaching for the off switch. Whilst we produce a variety of media forms such as, websites, video and printed publications, Access Radio is currently our main activity. We hope that this will be a springboard to other projects in the future, such as TV programming and public events (e.g. Training
When we set up the organisation in 2009, training was always a big part of our plans. We were concerned by a growing tendency in the industry to expect the “finished product” when recruiting staff and a reluctance to train volunteers. The net result of this was that opportunities for new entrants to the industry were severely restricted, particularly in the more deprived areas of the UK. Consequently, we made it one of our aims to train as many people as possible. In other words, to give opportunities to all rather than simply “buy-in” talent from other areas. Furthermore, despite having a national focus in our programming, we also felt a duty to make a positive contribution to the communities in which we are based. Having staff and volunteers from some of the most deprived communities in the UK, we were keen to help meet the needs of those people. Providing training and work experience was a great, practical way to do this. This has now evolved into a number of training schemes that we run, details of which can be found elsewhere on this website. Social Enterprise
As a new charity growing up in the realities of a tough economic environment, we knew that donations and public funding would be difficult to come by. For this reason, “charitable trading” has always been a significant part of our revenue. Originally, this was simply through provision of marketing/media/publicity consultancy to other charitable bodies. However, in 2011 we extended this area of our activity by opening on-line charity shops on Amazon and Ebay. These ‘shops’ sell items donated to us for fundraising purposes, promotional items and facilitate other charitable trading. This includes the sale of “Fair Trade” produce such as bags, candles, chocolate etc. As well as forming a significant part of our income this social enterprise promotes themes that resonate with our Christian values such as caring for the environment, recycling Fairtrade. Furthermore, it’s given us more opportunities to offer free training to local community members in the areas of e-commerce, sales and fulfilment. For more information about our work, please contact us using the details on the contact page which can be viewed by clicking here.
