Migrant workers in Immokalee prepare to launch a community radio station that would carry news shows in indigenous languages such as Zapotec and Quiche.

BY RICHARD BRAND

IMMOKALEE

In an effort to give a voice to migrant workers, dozens of radio techies from around the country descended on the farming town of Immokalee over the weekend to build a community radio station.

The radio ''barn-raising'' will probably further raise the profile of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group founded in 1996 that has received national attention in recent years for demanding better working conditions for its members, leading a boycott against Taco Bell and exposing slavery conditions on some of Florida's farms.

Riding on the edge of the radio dial -- at 107.9 FM -- the 100-watt WCTI, if all goes as planned, will hit the air for the first time tonight, bringing news and information in Spanish, Creole and indigenous languages such as Zapotec and Quiché.

''We will be able to reach our people with news from home, with what's going on in our community,'' said Lucas Benitez, one of three coalition members who received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award last month at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The volunteers -- led by a national group called the Prometheus Radio Project, whose slogan is ''How many times have we fought corporate radio today?'' -- crisscross the country building low-power community radio stations.

Based in Philadelphia, they've already launched stations for fishermen in Chesapeake Bay and poor blacks in Louisiana.

And for the first time they're coming to Florida.

''Some of the greatest people in the small world of community radio are coming,'' said Pete Tridish, technical director for Prometheus, reached by phone Wednesday in Immokalee where he was preparing for the weekend. ``We'll be constructing the whole thing. By Sunday, at around 7 or 8 we should be on the air.''

`ON-AIR PARTY'

They have not decided what the first broadcast words will be, but Tridish said the show would be an ''on-air party'' with speeches from community leaders and ``lots of noise from everybody there.''

Indeed, the weekend promises to be jam-packed with activities. The group will install the electronics, pad a sound recording booth, erect a radio tower. WCTI, whose call letters spell out the coalition's name in Spanish, will be housed at the coalition's headquarters in Immokalee's small downtown.

RUNNING STATION

Thirty seminars also are planned to provide migrant farmers a crash course in how to run a radio station. They include lessons on digital editing, field reporting, station governance and fundraising.

The station will initially have a three- to five-mile range, which will be extended to about seven miles once zoning boards approve a taller tower, Tridish said. Programming plans are still vague, but would include news segments, some music and organizing drives.

With the help of Prometheus, the coalition was able to snag a rare federal license to launch a community radio station.

Their application, submitted in 2000, was recently approved, Tridish said.

''These guys happened to get in on a very rare opportunity that may never happen again,'' Tridish said.

Community radio stations are nonprofit entities licensed by the Federal Communications Commission that usually run on low power. Often they are run by colleges, environmental groups, labor unions or religious groups.

Many volunteers were already en route Wednesday and Thursday, coming by car, bus and plane.

Steve Pierce, an adjunct professor of radio and ethics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is coming from Troy, N.Y.

He said he was inspired by the coalition's success in bringing attention to the plight of farm workers and wanted to help.

''I was really struck by the story they have, organizing themselves for a better life. How hard they work to survive,'' said Pierce, a former NPR freelancer. ``Up north, we really don't know much about the agricultural economy, how food gets here. There's a lack of awareness of the conditions and the lives of the people who produce our food.''

PUBLIC SERVICE

For the Immokalee workers, the radio station would provide a platform to reach migrant workers who don't attend the group's regular meetings.

''This will be ours,'' Benitez said.

``We will use it as a public service with some shows hosted in our original languages. Our own members will have their own programs. There are no other radio stations for workers like us here.''