Chea Sundaneth
Born in 1958, Chea Sundaneth is the legal owner of the Women’s Media Center (WMC) and one of the five women who co-founded the WMC radio in 1995. She is the only one of them still being active as WMC Executive Director. Between 1979 and 1981, Chea Sundaneth worked as protocol officer for the Kampuchea newspaper, and was appointed writer and reporter for the state newspaper a year after. While no formal journalism education existed at the time in Cambodia, she received trainings by international media experts as a governmental staff .With the arrival of the UNTAC in Cambodia, she started to work as a program officer for the UNTAC Radio, considered as the first neutral radio station in the country after the fall of the Khmer rouge regime. There she met her British colleague Roy Head, who encouraged her to establish a media outlet focusing on Women’s rights. Together with two American consultants, she worked on the concept in 1995. In order to gather more expertise on TV, networking, campaigning and audio-visual content, the team was expanded. Together with four other Cambodian women, Sundaneth co-founded WMC later that year. She worked at the WMC as Director of Radio Program. The radio obtained its broadcasting license from the Ministry of Information in 1999. Chea Sundaneth lives in Phnom Penh with her husband.
Further Information
Sources
Email correspondence with WMC (available upon request)