This week, she is beaming out that same independent message of social activism via satellite and the Internet from the UN-sponsored information summit in Geneva, playing music and interviewing guests who drop by at a makeshift but hi-tech studio.

Radio -- often the underappreciated stepchild in a world of high-speed web surfing, satellite television and mobile phones that can do just about anything save make your coffee -- is very much present at the international gathering.

The station is broadcasting locally and streaming on the Internet 24 hours a day in English, French, German and Spanish, with stations picking up the programs in Europe, Africa and Latin America.

"What I love in community radio is the editorial freedom... My role is giving a voice to people who usually do not have a voice," Miglioretto, who has trained female broadcasters in the Philippines and Madagascar, said.

"I want the women who are in my programs to define themselves and I want to somehow give my skills to them," she told AFP.

But while the station is trying to reach the thousands of delegates, activists and journalists at the conference center, community broadcasting is hardly mentioned in the declaration on information access about 170 countries were to adopt Friday.

"I think this is the biggest failing of the summit," George Christensen, a 15-year veteran broadcaster at Radio 1 from Gambia in west Africa said.

"Everywhere you go everyone talks about community media. It is the most accepted and widespread solution towards some of the problems we have. But the summit documents do not have it in any shape or form."

Radio, in particular, reaches isolated areas lacking telephones, television -- and where computers, let alone an Internet connection could be decades away.

A spokeswoman for the conference said the reason community media was not mentioned explicitly was because advocates never introduced a motion.

"No proposal was tabled, no delegation put any proposal forward during the preparation of the declaration," Francine Lambert said.

"That's complete nonsense," Steve Buckley, director of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) responded.

"Amendments were tabled, however they were later removed," the head of the organization grouping 3,000 community broadcasters said, blaming El Salvador and Mexico in particular for balking.

Community media do not go completely begging, he said -- the document makes a vague mention of media in local communities, but does not define their role.

Buckley added that there had been "tremendous" support for community media from such countries as South Africa and Colombia. And the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO on Wednesday announced a grant of 2.5 million euros (three million dollars) to support radio projects in three African countries.

At the summit, Community Radio WSIS, for World Summit on the Information Society, set up camp in an improvised African village, complete with garish pink trees and plastic chickens.

Headphones dangled from cardboard cutouts of broadcasters working across Africa to educate and inspire their fellow citizens.

Visitors could hear Thabo of Sesotho Media in Lesotho animatedly reflect on his outreach project to teach youth about HIV/AIDS, or Adelima from Namibia talk about sharing her knowledge via the microphone.

Nearby, Miglioretto sent two guests on their way and put a song by American singer Ani Difranco into the CD player.

"I played the powerless in too many scenes... talk to me now," Difranco, a performer known for her independent spirit and outspoken lyrics, sang.

Talking on the radio was about empowerment, Miglioretto said, even if the technical threshold could appear quite daunting, especially for women.

"Often men make a fuss about it -- that it looks as if it is so complicated. When I tell the women, look you know knitting? Knitting is more complicated than operating a radio mixing board."

SPACE.WIRE