Chicagoland

Hispanic teens, young adults spread Word with radio

By Michelle Martin | Staff writer
Sunday, November 20, 2011

Hispanic teens, young adults spread Word with radio

Youth from Enredat Radio broadcasted live at 5625 N. Milwaukee Ave. at 6 p.m. on July 31. (Karen Callaway / Catholic New World)
Miguel Santoyo, Jose Ortega, Mayra Gualoto and Vicente del Real wait to ask a question of Father P. Guillermo Campuzano during their broadcast. (Karen Callaway / Catholic New World)

Want to become “entangled” in the Gospel? Then follow the example of a group of Latino young people who this summer started a live radio show called “EnREDa- T,” aimed at bringing the word to young people like themselves.

The show, which aired on 750AM during the summer months, has gone online only as the radio frequency they were using is available only during daylight hours, which have become scarcer with the changing of the seasons, said Ignacio “Nacho” Perez, one of the organizers.

Those who want to listen live (in Spanish) can log in to www.enredat.org from 6-7 p.m. Sundays. Each show includes the reading of that week’s Gospel text, a discussion of it, and then interviews with guests or guest performances and prayer. Guests have included “Gift of Hope,” the Illinois organ transplant program.

The young people who run the show — a group of about 10 mainstays and several others who participate when they can — range in age from about 16 to 30, roughly the ages included in Hispanic ministry “Jovenes” groups. All of them were involved in the archdiocesan program for Hispanic young adults run by Jorge Rivera when Father Marco Mercado, the archdiocesan director of Hispanic ministry, was given the opportunity for two free hours of airtime every week. He gave one of those hours to Rivera’s group.

Perez, 27, of Palatine, said he and some others had wanted to do an online radio show for more than a year, and the sudden gift of airtime gave them the push they needed to get going. Perez runs the sound board — something he learned in the choir at his parish, Mission San Juan Diego in Arlington Heights. Other participants use their skills, with about five in technical roles and others in front of the microphones.

“We want to get the word out to all the young adults, especially the Hispanics and Latinos,” he said.

The live show gets 1- to 20 listeners each week, he said, and more people listen to the recorded shows from the website or the program’s Facebook page.

They don’t know how long they can keep it going, but they hope it lasts a long while, and that they might find another way to broadcast over the airwaves.

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