Miami, Florida, United States…[Libna Stevens/IAD]
Church leaders from the Inter-American Division, North American Division, and the South American Division, met to discuss ways of working together in providing television programming to fulfill the needs of the Hispanic populations in their regions. The meeting took place at the IAD Headquarter office in Miami, Florida, on Feb. 10.
According to Brad Thorp, director for Adventist Television Network, who chaired the meeting, the meeting resulted from a strong initiative from Pastor Leon B. Wellington, IAD vice president and Communication director, and the need to reach the Spanish populations in the IAD territory, since ATN is now on 24-hours a day, 365 days per year.
“In consultation with Pastor Wellington, we wanted to take the first steps in coordination with the NAD to discuss the need for programs and take the initial steps to make it happen,” Thorp said.
“The expected results from this meeting are to develop a network among the three divisions, to work more closely together, and speak to church administrators as we work together to take this message of hope to every person throughout the world,” he added.
According to Wellington, while there are several options for viewing Adventist programs on Television in English,”these options are limited at best or non existent at worst in many areas of Latin America,” he said. To respond to this need, the IAD will be working with unions to come up with project presentations and pilot programs to present to the administration of IAD, NAD Spanish Ministries, and SAD.
In attendance were Manuel Vazquez and Eradio Alonso from the NAD, Jorge R. Mayer from NAD’s Southern Union, as well as Flavio Ferras from SAD.
Among some of the items discussed were strategic plans for the programming, overview of current resources available worldwide and within the territory, policies and procedures for production, and quality control.